The Secret Life of Wilkie Collins

When Wilkie Collins, author of "The Woman in White" and "The Moonstone", the first detective novel in modern fiction, died in 1889, he shocked the Victorians by dividing his estate equally between two mistresses, Caroline Graves and Martha Rudd, and acknowledging Martha Rudd's three children as his own. William Clarke, married to Collins' great granddaughter, pieces together the truth behind the menage a trois. He describes Collins' friendship with Dickens, with whom he spent wild weekends in London and Paris, as well as his many interesting encounters with other writers and artists of the day, including Coleridge, Wordsworth, Constable, Blake, Millais and Rossetti. This biography brings to life one of the most prolific and successful Victorian novelists. This new edition includes the story of the recent discovery in New York of the manuscript of Collins' first unpublished novel "Iolani".