A Wilkie Collins Chronology (Electronic book text)

This new volume in the Author Chronologies series traces the events of the life of a major Victorian writer, Wilkie Collins (1824-1889), and provides a full account of his daily, monthly and yearly activities. Building on a critical and scholarly revival of interest in Collins, William Baker draws upon remarkable biographical revelations and the recent publication of Collins's letters to provide a unique insight into both the man and the writer. The volume will appeal to all students of Wilkie Collins and also, more generally, to those with an interest in the cultural life of nineteenth-century England.
The chronology reveals the extensive canvas of Wilkie Collins's interaction with other famous figures, including Dickens, Thackeray, William Holman Hunt and John Everett Millais. Newly available correspondence reveals the extent of Collins's unorthodox attitudes: his private life was divided between two women, one of whom was the mother of his three children, and neither of whom he married. A replete creative life is exposed here in fascinating everyday detail.