The Legacy of Cain: Wilkie Collins Top Collections
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Viewing my task by the light which later experience casts on it, I think I shall act wisely by exercising some control over the freedom of my pen.
I propose to pass over in silence the name of the town in which is situated the prison once confided to my care. I shall observe a similar discretion in alluding to individuals—some dead, some living, at the present time.
Being obliged to write of a woman who deservedly suffered the extreme penalty of the law, I think she will be sufficiently identified if I call her The Prisoner. Of the four persons present on the evening before her execution three may be distinguished one from the other by allusion to their vocations in life. I here introduce them as The Chaplain, The Minister, and The Doctor. The fourth was a young woman. She has no claim on my consideration; and, when she is mentioned, her name may appear. If these reserves excite suspicion, I declare beforehand that they influence in no way the sense of responsibility which commands an honest man to speak the truth....
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About the author
William Wilkie Collins (8 January 1824 – 23 September 1889) was an English novelist, playwright, and author of short stories. His best-known works are The Woman in White (1859), No Name (1862), Armadale (1866), and The Moonstone (1868).
Collins was born into the family of painter William Collins in London. He received his early education at home from his mother, after which he attended an academy and a private boarding school. He also traveled with his family to Italy and France, and learned the French and Italian languages. He served as a clerk in the firm of the tea merchants Antrobus & Co.
His first novel Iolani, or Tahiti as It Was; a Romance, was rejected by publishers in 1845. His next novel, Antonina, was published in 1850. In 1851, he met Charles Dickens, and the two became close friends. A number of Collins' works were first published in Dickens' journals All the Year Round and Household Words. The two collaborated on several dramatic and fictional works, and some of Collins' plays were performed by Dickens' acting company.
Collins published his best known works in the 1860s, achieving financial stability and an international reputation. During this time he began suffering from gout and developed an addiction to opium, which he took (in the form of laudanum) for pain. He continued to publish novels and other works throughout the 1870s and '80s, but the quality of his writing declined along with his health. He died in 1889.
