Library 
Under Three Flags
There is an infinite calm in the late spring air, and the golden afternoon drifts by on lazy pinions. Away in the west, across the vale, the main spur of the Green Mountain range awaits the last pencilings of the low-descending sun. Southward Wild River sings its way through buttercup and daisy flecked meadows; to […]
The Queen of Hearts
The elderly Brothers Owen, Morgan and Griffith live a quiet, retired life in the countryside, which is turned upside-down by Griffith’s ward, the young Jessie Yelverton. Originally, her visit to them was to last only six weeks, but for a very certain reason, the gentlemen must find a way to prolong her visit and get […]
My Lady’s Money
My Lady’s Money is a novella written by Wilkie Collins. Lady Lydiard has an uncomfortable bit of business to settle, and intends to do so with a five hundred pound note. But just as she is about to complete the letter with which she is to send the note off, an emergency occurs in the […]
The Legacy of Cain
Published in 1888, The Legacy of Cain was the final novel completed by Collins and the last to be syndicated by Tillotson. The Legacy of Cain explores the theme of hereditary evil, and attacks the idea that ‘bad blood’ necessarily results in a criminality. The main story begins in 1875. Helena and Eunice are sisters brought […]
The Law and the Lady
The Law and the Lady is a detective story, published in 1875 by Wilkie Collins. It is not quite as sensational in style as The Moonstone and The Woman in White. Detective story dedicated to Regnier, attacking the Scottish Not Proven verdict. Early example of a female sleuth. The heroine is one of Collins’s determined and […]
Jezebel’s Daughter
Jezebel’s Daughter is a sensational novel published in 1880 and dedicated to Alberto Caccia, Collins’s Italian translator. Based on the 1858 play, The Red Vial, Collins’s attempt to write for ‘the masses’ resulted in an unduly melodramatic tone. The novel, however, is notable for the way it handles the treatment of lunatics and the mentally […]
I Say No
I say Nois a Mystery story published in 1884 with the heroine turning detective, to reveal the truth about the death of her father. The plot relies heavily on coincidence and, as in The Law and the Lady, a supposed murder turns out to have been suicide.
The Haunted Hotel – A Mystery of Modern Venice
Wilkie Collins’s ghost story was set in 1860 and published in book form with ‘My Lady’s Money’. It was dedicated to his friends Mr and Mrs Sebastian Schlesinger. Apart from supernatural elements, the story contains detective procedures and an insurance fraud relying on substituted identity that anticipates the later Blind Love (1890). The story is […]
The Guilty River
The Guilty River isn’t concerned with the supernatural, but with heredity. It is a mystery which betrays a certain fear of characteristic inheritance. Collins was not alone in this exploration. Like organic memory, heredity was a subject written about in literary and scientific circles alike, and at times the two were in direct conversation. Thomas […]
The Dead Alive
The Dead Alive, also called John Jago’s Ghost, is a novella written in 1874 by Wilkie Collins based on the Boorn Brothers murder case. It was reprinted with a side-by-side examination of the case by Rob Warden in 2005 by Northwestern Press. This novel is based on the true-life Boorn Brothers murder conviction case of 1819. […]