Mr Lismore and the Widow: A man is offered a bride but at what cost

Written by Wilkie Collins

Narrated by Elliot Fitzpatrick

Wilkie Collins was born on 8th January 1824 in Marylebone, London.

The family moved several times in his early years before, at 12, they travelled to France and Italy for 2 years where the sights and atmosphere made a deep and lasting impression on him.

He resumed his education at Mr Cole’s private boarding school in Highbury, Islington. Here, he began his literary career under unusual circumstances: the school bully would give him no peace until he had been told a bedtime story. This ‘little brute’ helped create one of England’s greatest writers.

On leaving school, in 1841, he became a clerk at a tea merchant before, 2 years later, publishing his first short story. However, his first novel was rejected and remained so during his lifetime.

A brief stint at Lincoln’s Inn to please his father and to acquire a steady income was halted by his father’s death. Collins then wrote and published his fathers’ memoirs. He then completed his legal education though he would never practice.

In March 1851, he was introduced to Charles Dickens and there now started a period of sustained literary output and a remarkable lifelong friendship. His stories were published in Dicken’s magazines, and he toured with Dicken’s theatrical before the two of them travelled to the Continent.

By the early 1860’s worrying signs of ill-health appeared with rheumatic gout. As it worsened, he sought respite and cures in German spa towns and gave up writing to help his recuperation.

His personal life had become very complicated. He was living with the widowed Caroline Graves and conducting an affair with a much younger Martha Rudd. With the serialised release of ‘The Moonstone’ and vicious attacks of gout Caroline left him and married another. Collins was now prescribed opium and was soon its lifelong dependent. Martha bore him two children and with the return of a now divorced Caroline Graves he now divided his time between the two women.

In 1874 he set aside writing to tour North America on a reading tour.

Throughout his later years he continued to write and publish. In all 30 novels, 14 plays, 60 short stories and over a 100 non-fiction essays as well as many more collaborations with Dickens.

In 1884 the Society of Authors elected him as it’s Vice-President.

Wilkie Collins died from a paralytic stroke on September 23rd, 1889, in London. He was 65.

• Language: English
• Publisher: The Copyright Group
• Release date: May 5, 2024
• ISBN: 9781835477366

Wilkie Collins

Wilkie Collins, hijo del paisajista William Collins, nació en Londres en 1824. Fue aprendiz en una compañía de comercio de té, estudió Derecho, hizo sus pinitos como pintor y actor, y antes de conocer a Charles Dickens en 1851, había publicado ya una biografía de su padre, Memoirs of the Life of William Collins, Esq., R. A. (1848), una novela histórica, Antonina (1850), y un libro de viajes, Rambles Beyond Railways (1851). Pero el encuentro con Dickens fue decisivo para la trayectoria literaria de ambos. Basil (ALBA CLÁSICA núm. VI; ALBA MÍNUS núm.) inició en 1852 una serie de novelas «sensacionales», llenas de misterio y violencia pero siempre dentro de un entorno de clase media, que, con su técnica brillante y su compleja estructura, sentaron las bases del moderno relato detectivesco y obtuvieron en seguida una gran repercusión: La dama de blanco (1860), Armadale (1862) o La Piedra Lunar (1868) fueron tan aplaudidas como imitadas. Sin nombre (1862; ALBA CLÁSICA núm. XVII; ALBA CLÁSICA MAIOR núm. XI) y Marido y mujer (1870; ALBA CLÁSICA MAIOR núm. XVI; ALBA MÍNUS núm.), también de este período, están escritas sin embargo con otras pautas, y sus heroínas son mujeres dramáticamente condicionadas por una arbitraria, aunque real, situación legal. En la década de 1870, Collins ensayó temas y formas nuevos: La pobre señorita Finch (1871-1872; ALBA CLÁSICA núm. XXVI; ALBA MÍNUS núm 5.) es un buen ejemplo de esta época. El novelista murió en Londres en 1889, después de una larga carrera de éxitos.