Wilkie Collins
1824–89

William Wilkie Collins, novelist, elder son of William Collins, R.A., was born in London on 8 January 1824. He was educated partly at Highbury, but during 1836–39 was with his parents in Italy. After his return he spent four years in business, and then entered Lincoln’s Inn; but gradually took to literature, the life of his father (1848) being his earliest production. To it succeeded Antonina, or The Fall of Rome (1850), Basil (1852), Hide and Seek (1854), The Dead Secret (1857), The Woman in White (1860), No Name (1862), Armadale (1866), The Moonstone (1868), and The New Magdalen (1873) – in all, fully a score of novels and collections of novelettes. He died on 23 September 1889.