Poet in New York

THE WOMAN IN WHITE

WILKIE COLLINS was born in London in 1824, the eldest son of the landscape painter William Collins. In 1846, having spent five years in the tea business, he was entered to read for the bar at Lincoln’s Inn, where he gained the legal knowledge that was to give him much material for his writing. His work includes short stories, plays, journalism, and biography, but it is on his 23 novels that his reputation rests. His first novel, Antonina, or the Fall of Rome (1850) brought him to the attention of Charles Dickens, who became a close friend. Collins acted with him, contributed to Household Words, and travelled with him on the Continent. Dickens produced and acted in two melodramas written by Collins, The Lighthouse (1855) and The Frozen Deep (1857). However, it was with The Woman in White (1860) that Collins established his reputation, and the high-impact genre known as sensation fiction. No Name (1862), Armadale (1866) and The Moonstone (1868) also achieved huge popularity. His unconventional lifestyle remained a secret from his reading public. Although he remained unmarried, he lived with a young widow, Caroline Graves, and her daughter, from 1858. By 1868 he had established a second mistress, Martha Rudd (who bore him three children) in separate lodgings. During the 1870s he returned to the theatre, producing stage versions of his novels. Much of his later fiction was planned with dramatic adaptation in mind. Important novels of this period – which saw a new emphasis on social commentary – include Man and Wife (1870), Poor Miss Finch (1872), The Law and the Lady (1875), Heart and Science (1883) and The Legacy of Cain (1888). Collins died in 1889. His final novel, Blind Love (1890) was completed by his friend Sir Walter Besant.

MATTHEW SWEET has recently completed a doctoral thesis on sensation fiction. He has been film critic of the Independent on Sunday, a columnist for the Big Issue, and a director’s assistant at the Royal Shakespeare Company. He is a contributor to the New Dictionary of National Biography and writes regularly for the Independent, the Independent on Sunday and the Guardian.

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First published by Sampson Low, 1860
Published in Penguin Classics 1999
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Introduction and editorial material © Matthew Sweet, 1999

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EISBN: 978–0–141–90730–7

A CHRONOLOGY OF WILKIE COLLINS’S LIFE

INTRODUCTION

FURTHER READING

A NOTE ON THE TEXT

THE WOMAN IN WHITE

PREFACE (1860)

PREFACE TO THE PRESENT EDITION (1861)

APPENDIX A: THEATRICAL ADAPTIONS OF THE WOMAN IN WHITE

APPENDIX B: WILKIE COLLINS ON THE COMPOSITION OF THE WOMAN IN WHITE

APPENDIX C: THE SERIALIZATION OF THE WOMAN IN WHITE IN ALL THE YEAR ROUND

NOTES

A CHRONOLOGY OF WILKIE COLLINS’S LIFE

1824 8 January: Born at 11 New Cavendish Street, St Marylebone, London to William John Thomas Collins, RA (1788–1847), painter, and Harriet Collins, née Geddes (1790–1868)

1838 August: Family moves to 20 Avenue Road, Regents Park; attends Mr Cole’s private boarding school, Highbury Place

1840 Summer: Family moves to 85 Oxford Terrace, Bayswater; December: leaves Mr Cole’s school

1843 August: First published fiction, ‘The Last Stage Coachman’, Illuminated Magazine

1844 Writes Iólani; Or Tahiti as it was, a Romance, which remains unpublished until 1999

1848 Summer: Family moves to 38 Blandford Square; November: first book, Memoirs of the Life of William Collins, Esq., RA, published by Chapman and Hall

1849 Exhibits a painting, The Smuggler’s Retreat, at the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition

1850 26 February: First play, A Court Duel, an adaptation of J. P. Simon and Edmond Badon’s Monsieur Lockroy, staged at the Soho Theatre, Dean Street; 27 February: first novel, Antonina; or the Fall of Rome, published by Richard Bentley; Summer: moves with mother to 17 Hanover Terrace; July–August: walking tour of Cornwall with Henry Brandling, artist

1851 30 January: Rambles Beyond Railways, a travel book on Cornwall, published by Bentley; March: meets Charles Dickens; first contribution to Bentley’s Miscellany, ‘The Twin Sisters’; 16 May: acts with Dickens in Edward Bulwer-Lytton’s Not So Bad as We Seem; 27 September: first article for Edward Pigott’s socialist newspaper, Leader; 21 November: called to the Bar; 17 December: Mr Wray’s Cash-Box published by Bentley

1852 24 April: First contribution to Household Words, ‘A Terribly Strange Bed’; 16 November: Basil: A Story of Modern Life published by Bentley

1853 July–September: Stays with Dickens in Boulogne; October–December: tours Switzerland and Italy with Dickens and Augustus Egg

1854 Joins the Garrick Club; 6 June: Hide and Seek published by Bentley; July–August: stays with Dickens in Boulogne

1855 16 June: First play, The Lighthouse, performed at Tavistock House by Dickens’s theatrical company; September: sails to Scilly Isles with Pigott

1856 February: First collection of short stories, After Dark, published by Smith, Elder; 1–29 March: A Rogue’s Life serialized in Household Words; September: Moves to 2 Harley Place; October: becomes staff writer on Household Words

1857 3 January: The Dead Secret begins serialization in Household Words and (from 24 January) in Harper’s Weekly; 6 January: The Frozen Deep performed at Tavistock House; June: The Dead Secret published in volume form by Bradbury and Evans; 10 August: The Lighthouse opens at the Olympic Theatre; September: tours Cumberland, Lancashire and Yorkshire with Dickens; 3–31 October: they describe the trip in The Lazy Tour of Two Idle Apprentices, published in Household Words; December: collaborates with Dickens on ‘The Perils of Certain English Prisoners’

1858 First French translation, The Dead Secret; July–August: first visit to Broadstairs, Kent; September: resigns from the Garrick club, in protest at the expulsion of his friend Edmund Yates; 11 October: The Red Vial is produced at the Olympic Theatre, and flops

1859 January–February: Lives with Mrs Caroline Graves at 124 Albany Street; apart from one short interlude, they remain together until his death; May–December: lives at 2a Cavendish Square; October: The Queen of Hearts published by Hurst and Blackett; 26 November–25 August 1860: The Woman in White serialized in All the Year Round; December: moves to 12 Harley Street

1860 17 July: Charles Allston Collins marries Kate Dickens; August: The Woman in White published in volume form by Sampson Low; 22 August: opens bank account at Coutts

1861 January: Resigns from All the Year Round; 16 April: joins the Athenaeum club; August: visits Whitby, Yorkshire, with Caroline Graves

1862 15 March–17 January 1863: No Name serialized in All the Year Round; 31 December: published in volume form by Sampson Low

1863 August: Visits the Isle of Man with Caroline and her daughter, Harriet; November: a collection of journalism, My Miscellanies, published by Sampson Low

1864 November–June 1866: Armadale serialized in the Cornhill Magazine; December: moves to 9 Melcombe Place, Dorset Square

1866 May: Armadale published in volume form by Smith, Elder; October: visits Italy with Pigott; 27 October: The Frozen Deep opens at the Olympic Theatre

1867 September: Moves to 90 Gloucester Place; December: collaborates with Dickens on short story ‘No Thoroughfare’; 24 December: theatrical adaptation produced, Adelphi Theatre

1868 Finds lodgings for Martha Rudd, his second mistress, at 33 Bolsover Street, Portland Place; she uses the name ‘Mrs Dawson’; 4 January–8 August: The Moonstone serialized in All the Year Round; 19 March: his mother dies; July: The Moonstone published in volume form by Tinsley Brothers; 29 October: witnesses the marriage of Caroline Graves to Joseph Charles Clow

1869 29 March: Black and White, written in collaboration with the actor Charles Fechter, opens at the Adelphi Theatre; 4 July: daughter, Marian Dawson, born to Collins and Martha Rudd; 20 November–30 July 1870: Man and Wife serialized in Cassell’s Magazine

1870 June: Man and Wife published in volume form by F.S. Ellis; 9 June: Death of Dickens.

1871 April: Caroline Graves returns to live with Collins in Gloucester Place; 14 May: second daughter, Harriet Constance Dawson, born to Collins and Martha Rudd at 33 Bolsover Street; 9 October: The Woman in White opens at the Olympic; 2 September–24 February 1872: Poor Miss Finch serialized in Cassell’s Magazine

1872 26 January: Poor Miss Finch published in volume form by Bentley; October–July 1873: The New Magdalen serialized in Temple Bar

1873 17 January: Miss or Mrs? And Other Stories published by Bentley; 22 February: Man and Wife opens at the Prince of Wales Theatre; 9 April: Charles Allston Collins dies; 17 May: The New Magdalen published in volume form by Bentley; 19 May: stage version of The New Magdalen opens at the Olympic; 25 September: arrives in New York for reading tour of America; 10 November: The New Magdalen opens in New York

1874 Martha Rudd moves to 10 Taunton Place, Regents Park; 7 March: Collins leaves Boston for England; 26 September–13 March 1875: The Law and the Lady serialized in the Graphic; 2 November: The Frozen Deep and Other Stories published by Bentley; 25 December: son, William Charles Collins Dawson, born to Collins and Martha Rudd at Taunton Place

1875 Copyright for Collins’s work acquired by Chatto and Windus, who remain his publishers until his death; February: The Law and the Lady published in volume form by Chatto and Windus

1876 January–September: The Two Destinies serialized in Temple Bar; 15 April: Miss Gwilt, a dramatic version of Armadale, opens at the Globe Theatre; August: The Two Destinies published in volume form

1877 29 August: The Dead Secret opens at the Lyceum Theatre; 17 September: The Moonstone opens at the Olympic Theatre; December: ‘My Lady’s Money’ published in the Illustrated London News

1878 June–November: The Haunted Hotel published in Belgravia Magazine; published in volume form in November

1879 1 January–23 July: The Fallen Leaves – First Series serialized in World; 7 April: A Rogue’s Life published in volume form; July: The Fallen Leaves – First Series published in volume form; 13 September–30 January 1880: Jezebel’s Daughter serialized in the Bolton Weekly Times and other regional newspapers owned by William Tillotson

1880 March: Jezebel’s Daughter published in volume form; 2 October–26 March 1881: The Black Robe serialized in the Sheffield and Rotheram Independent and other Tillotson titles

1881 April: The Black Robe published in volume form; December: A. P. Watt becomes Collins’s literary agent

1882 22 July–13 January 1883: Heart and Science serialized in the Manchester Weekly Times and other regional newspapers; August–June 1883: Heart and Science serialized in Belgravia Magazine

1883 April: Heart and Science published in volume form; 9 June: Rank and Riches opens at the Adelphi Theatre, and is a failure; 15 December–12 July 1884: ‘I Say No’ serialized in the Glasgow Weekly Herald and other regional newspapers

1884 January–December: ‘I Say No’ serialized in London Society; October: ‘I Say No’ published in volume form

1885 28 August: Tommie, Collins’s dog, dies; 30 October: The Evil Genius performed once at the Vaudeville Theatre for copyright reasons; 11 December–30 April 1886: The Evil Genius serialized in the Leigh Journal and Times and other Tillotson titles

1886 September: The Evil Genius published in volume form; 15 November: The Guilty River published in volume form

1887 May: Little Novels, a collection of short stories, published in volume form

1888 February: Moves to 82 Wimpole Street with Caroline Graves; 17 February–29 June: The Legacy of Cain serialized in the Leigh Journal and Times and other Tillotson titles; November: The Legacy of Cain published in volume form

1889 30 June: Suffers a stroke; 6 July–28 December: Blind Love serialized in the Illustrated London News, completed by Walter Besant after Collins’s death; 23 September: dies at 82 Wimpole Street; 27 September: funeral at Kensal Green Cemetery; 24 October: auction of furniture and effects

1890 January: Blind Love published in volume form; 20 January: auction of library and manuscripts; 22 February: auction of pictures and drawings; February: The Lazy Tour of Two Idle Apprentices published in volume form by Chapman and Hall

THE WOMAN IN WHITE

CONTENTS

A CHRONOLOGY OF WILKIE COLLINS’S LIFE