ONE of the significant things in the career of Wilkie Collins was the effect for good and evil that he and Charles Dickens had upon one another. The trace of stories like Bleak House and Martin Chuzzlewit may be found in many chapters of The Woman in White, where the fashion of making characters monologue freely or of developing an incident is very like that of Dickens. The novel was in fact written first of all under Dickens' charge, and for his magazine All the Year Round. On its completion Dickens wrote to Collins congratulating him on "having triumphantly finished" it, his "best book." The reference in the next sentence to "the undersigned obedient disciple," that is Dickens himself, is worth note, for it was undoubtedly Wilkie Collins who tempted his great fellow-novelist into the weaving of elaborate plots, a form of ingenuity not nearly so well fitted to Dickens' purposes as to those of a circumstance-novelist like our present author and novelist. In a previous letter¹ Dickens had said, "In character it is excellent. Mr. Fairlie is as good as the lawyer, and the lawyer as good as he." Mrs. Vesey and Miss Halcombe he thought good too, and praised the skill shown in the portrait of the unromantic Sir Percival. But he doubted, a very noticeable Dickens touch, "whether any man ever showed uneasiness by hand or foot without being forced by nature to show it in his face too?"

The reference by Dickens to Marian Halcombe may serve to recall the eager pleasure Edward Fitzgerald took in her and the novel. He even thought at one time of calling his herring-lugger after her. In one of his letters too, speaking of Jane Austen, he says,—" She is capital as far as she goes: but she never goes out of the parlour. . . . I must think the Woman in White with her Count Fosco far beyond all that." Swinburne was another admirer of Wilkie Collins who paid especial tribute to this story, in subscribing with some emphasis to the opinion that "no third book of their author's can be ranked as equal with The Woman in White and The Moonstone, two works of not more indisputable than incomparable ability." The same critic defends Count Fosco from the charges of another writer who had complained that the character was never sufficiently realised or vitalised or informed with humanity by the inventor. Swinburne thought the kaleidoscopic presentment of Fosco, through the varying estimates of different observers, an artistic and effective device. The author's genius, he said, was never more distinctly displayed than in this chapter, and he agreed that the opening of the story was the masterpiece of Wilkie Collins' art.

The Woman in White indeed, whatever else be said of it by critics who ask more of its author than it was in him to give, is one of the three best plot-novels in all English fiction; and as such it deserves a place in Everyman's Library, where the novel, in all its kinds and phases, asks to be represented. It was an immense advance in this particular art upon the books that preceded it, including Basil, Hide and Seek, and The Dead Secret. The ninth book in Wilkie Collins' list, it appeared when he had been writing novels for some ten years. He was born in London, eldest son of William Collins the painter, in 1824; died there in 1889, and lies buried at Kensal Green.

E. R.

The following is a list of his chief novels and other published works:—

Memoirs of the Life of William Collins, R.A., 1848; Antonin, or the Fall of Rome, 1850; Rambles beyond Railways, or Notes in Cornwall, 1851; Basil: a Story of Modern Life, 1852; Hide and Seek, 1854; After Dark, 1856; The Dead Secret, 1857; The Queen of Hearts: a Collection of Stories with a Connecting Link, 1859; The Woman in White, 1860; No Name, 1862; My Miscellanies, 1863; Armadale, 1866; The Moonstone: a Romance, 1868; Man and Wife, 1870; Poor Miss Finch, 1872; The New Magdalen, 1873; The Frozen Deep, and other Stories, 1874; The Law and the Lady, 1875; The Two Destinies, 1876; The Haunted Hotel, 1878; A Rogue's Life from his Birth to his Marriage, 1879; The Fallen Leaves, 1879; Jezebel's Daughter, 1880; The Black Robe, 1881; Heart and Science, 1883; I say No, 1884; The Evil Genius 1886; The Legacy of Cain 1888; Blind Love, with preface by W. Besant, 1890.

Several of the above were dramatised by the author.

¹ "Letters of Charles Dickens to Wilkie Collins, 1851-1870," selected by Miss Georgina Hogarth (Osgood, M'Ilvaine & Co., 1892).

The Woman in White has been received with such marked favour by a very large circle of readers, that this volume scarcely stands in need of any prefatory introduction on my part. All that it is necessary for me to say may be summed up in few words.

I have endeavoured, by careful correction and revision, to make my story as worthy as I could of a continuance of the public approval. Certain technical errors which had escaped me while I was writing the book are here rectified. None of these little blemishes in the slightest degree interfered with the interest of the narrative—but it was as well to remove them at the first opportunity, out of respect to my readers; and in this edition, accordingly, they exist no more.

Some doubts having been expressed, in certain captious quarters, about the correct presentation of the legal "points" incidental to the story, I may be permitted to mention that I spared no pains—in this instance, as in all others—to preserve myself from unintentionally misleading my readers. A solicitor of great experience in his profession most kindly and carefully guided my steps whenever the course of the narrative !ed me into the labyrinth of the Law. Every doubtful question was submitted to this gentleman before I ventured on putting pen to paper; and all the proof-sheets which referred to legal matters were corrected by his hand before the story was pub­lished. I can add, on high judicial authority, that these precautions were not taken in vain. The "law" in this book has been discussed, since its publication, by more than one competent tribunal, and has been decided to be sound.

One word more, before I conclude, in acknowledgment of the heavy debt of gratitude which I owe to the reading public. It is no affectation on my part to say that the success of this book has been especially welcome to me, because it implied the recognition of a literary principle which has guided me since I first addressed my readers in the character of a novelist.

I have always held the old-fashioned opinion that the primary object of a work of fiction should be to tell a story; and I have never believed that the novelist who properly performed this first condition of his art was in danger, on that account, of neglecting the delineation of character—for this plain reason, that the effect produced by any narrative of events is essentially dependent, not on the events themselves, but on the human interest which is directly connected with them. It may be possible in novel-writing to present characters successfully without telling a story; but it is not possible to tell a story successfully without presenting characters: their existence, as recognisable realities, being the sole condition on which the story can be effectively told. The only narrative which can hope to lay a strong hold on the attention of readers is a narra­tive which interests them about men and women—for the perfectly obvious reason that they are men and women themselves.

The reception accorded to The Woman in White has practically confirmed these opinions, and has satisfied me that I may trust to them in the future. Here is a novel which has met with a very kind reception because it is a Story; and here is a story, the interest of which—as I know by the testimony, voluntarily addressed to me, of the readers themselves—is never disconnected from the interest of character. "Laura," "Miss Halcombe," and "Anne Catherick;" "Count Fosco," "Mr. Fairlie," and "Walter Hartright," have made friends for me wherever they have made themselves known. I hope the time is not far distant when I may meet those friends again, and when I may try, through the medium of new characters, to awaken their interest in another story.