69-512: The Frozen Deep is an 1856 play, originally staged as an amateur theatrical, written by Wilkie Collins under the substantial guidance of Charles Dickens . Dickens's hand was so prominent—beside acting in the play for several performances, he added a preface , altered lines, and attended to most of the props and sets—that the principal edition of the play is entitled "Under the Management of Charles Dickens". John C. Eckel wrote: "As usual with
138-461: A concert, a lecture or an exhibition at a gallery would not think of setting foot in a theatre". The Reeds did not to refer to the Gallery of Illustration as a theatre, and they called their productions "illustrations" or "entertainments" , acts were "parts", and roles were "assumptions", avoiding conventional theatrical terms. Stedman comments that the accompaniment of piano, harmonium, and at times
207-651: A decade, show Collins not just as a master of his craft, but as an innovater and provocateur. These four works, which secured him an international reputation, and sold in large numbers, ensured his financial stability, and allowed him to support many others. The Woman in White was serialised in All the Year Round from November 1859 to August 1860 to great success. The novel was published in book form soon after and reached an eighth edition by November 1860. His rising success as
276-492: A genre invented by Collins and not by Poe ." The noted mystery writer Dorothy L. Sayers later referred to it as "probably the very finest detective story ever written". After The Moonstone, Collins's novels contained fewer thriller elements and more social commentary. The subject matter continued to be sensational, but his popularity declined. The poet Algernon Charles Swinburne commented: "What brought good Wilkie's genius nigh perdition? / Some demon whispered—'Wilkie! have
345-574: A great impression on him. He learned Italian while in Italy and began learning French, in which he would eventually become fluent. From 1838 to 1840, he attended the Reverend Cole's private boarding school in Highbury , where he was bullied. One boy forced Collins to tell him a story every night before allowing him to go to sleep. "It was this brute who first awakened in me, his poor little victim,
414-486: A harp "also emphasized the presumably untheatrical nature of the entertainment". The author F. Anstey recalled that in his Victorian childhood there was no question of being taken to a theatre, The stage was tiny because the long, narrow gallery could not accommodate a larger one. This restricted the Reeds to a cast of at most five performers. Much doubling of parts and quick changes were called for. The Era reported on
483-406: A large venue, replaced them with professionals, among them Ellen Ternan. These performances, given on 21, 22 and 24 August were attended by thousands, and earned Dickens and the cast unusually effusive reviews. To Miss Coutts, Dickens wrote of his pleasure at being able to effect "the crying of two thousand people", including the stage-hands, carpenters, and even the cast, with his final death scene in
552-485: A mission. ' " Factors most often cited in Collins's decline have been the death of Dickens in 1870 and with it the loss of his literary mentoring, Collins's increased dependence upon laudanum, and his penchant for using his fiction to rail against social injustices . The Woman in White and The Moonstone share an unusual narrative structure, somewhat resembling an epistolary novel , in which different portions of
621-613: A painting, The Smugglers' Retreat , at the Royal Academy summer exhibition . Antonina was published by Richard Bentley in February 1850. Collins went on a walking tour of Cornwall with artist Henry Brandling in July and August 1850. He managed to complete his legal studies and was called to the bar in 1851. Though he never formally practised, he used his legal knowledge in many of his novels. An instrumental event in his career
690-520: A play which passed into rehearsal under Dickens' auspices it came out improved. This was the case with The Frozen Deep . The changes were so numerous that the drama almost may be ascribed to Dickens". Dickens himself took the part of Richard Wardour and was stage-manager during its modest original staging in Dickens's home Tavistock House . The play, however, grew in influence through a series of outside performances, including one before Queen Victoria at
759-431: A power of which but for him I might never have been aware.... When I left school I continued story telling for my own pleasure," Collins later said. In 1840 the family moved to 85 Oxford Terrace, Bayswater . In late 1840, Collins left school at the age of nearly 17 and was apprenticed as a clerk to the firm of tea merchants Antrobus & Co, owned by a friend of Wilkie's father. He disliked clerical work, but worked for
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#1732776440815828-407: A substantial margin the prices paid for the vast majority of similar novels, yet the novel failed to recoup its publisher's investment. The Moonstone , published in 1868, and the last novel of what is generally regarded as the most successful decade of Collins' author's career, was, despite a somewhat cool reception from both Dickens and the critics, a significant return to form. It re-established
897-464: A typical production in July 1868: Reed experimented with what he called chamber opera – opera di camera – simplified versions of operas for his usual small forces. The first was Jessy Lea (1863), a retelling of L'elisir d'amore , with words by John Oxenford and music by George Macfarren . After seven further productions of the same nature, with original music by Macfarren and Virginia Gabriel and adaptations of Offenbach and Michael Balfe
966-483: A way for him to fight his illness without allowing it to keep him bedridden. His step-daughter Harriet also served as an amanuensis for several years. His last novel, Blind Love , was finished posthumously by Walter Besant. Collins died on 23 September 1889, at 65 Wimpole Street , following a paralytic stroke. He is buried in Kensal Green Cemetery , West London . His headstone describes him as
1035-426: A writer allowed Collins to resign his post with All the Year Round in 1862 and focus on his novels. While planning his next novel, No Name , he continued to suffer from gout, which began to affect his eyes. Serial publication of No Name began in early 1862 and finished in 1863. By that time Collins was having difficulty controlling the amount of laudanum he was taking for his continual gout and became addicted. At
1104-527: Is no matter for wonder, as the subject treated is perhaps the finest that can be conceived for the purposes of scenic illustration". Grieve and Telbin followed this with "Diorama of Our Native Land" (1851), "Campaigns of the Duke of Wellington" (1852), "Diorama of the Arctic Regions" (1853), and "The Seat of War" (1854). The prefix "Royal" was added to the title of the establishment by late 1852, but it
1173-522: Is not clear on what authority, if any. Early in 1856 the singer and actress Priscilla Horton began to perform at the venue. Her entertainments given at St Martin's Hall had been popular, and with her husband, German Reed , at the piano and "the pictorial aid of Messrs Grieve and Telbin", she started giving what The Morning Chronicle called "her very clever impersonations" at the Royal Gallery of Illustration. The Reeds continued to perform at
1242-643: The Royal Gallery of Illustration , and a three-performance run at the Manchester Free Trade Hall for the benefit of the Douglas Jerrold Fund to benefit the widow of Dickens's old friend, Douglas Jerrold . There, night after night, everyone—including, by some accounts, the carpenters and the stage-hands—was moved to tears by the play. It also brought Dickens together with Ellen Ternan , an actress he hired to play one of
1311-507: The Vatican , which Nash arranged, with papal permission, to be copied by top Roman artists of the time. He allowed members of the public to view the gallery by appointment. After his death the pictures were sold. The house was bought by an auctioneer called Rainy, who made it his business premises and used the gallery to display his wares in the 1830s and 1840s. In 1850 the theatrical scene-painters Thomas Grieve and William Telbin took on
1380-420: The 1860s to be serialised in a magazine other than All the Year Round, provoked strong criticism. Reviewers found its villainess Lydia Gwilt to be doubtful, and were further provoked by Collins's typically confrontational preface. The novel was simultaneously a financial coup for its author and a comparative commercial failure: the sum paid by Cornhill for the serialisation rights was exceptional, eclipsing by
1449-444: The 1860s. In the 1870s and 1880s, after becoming addicted to the opium which he took for his gout , the quality of his health declined and, in turn, the reception of his artistic output. Collins criticised the institution of marriage . He had relationships with two women: widow Caroline Graves – living with her for most of his life, treating her daughter as his – and the younger Martha Rudd, with whom he had three children. Collins
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#17327764408151518-437: The 1870s and 1880s. The Lighthouse was translated into French by Emile Forgues. Collins enjoyed ten years of success after publishing The Woman in White in 1859. His next novel, No Name combined social commentary – the absurdity of the law as applied to children of unmarried parents (see Illegitimacy in fiction ) – with a densely plotted revenge thriller . Armadale , the first and only one of Collins's major novels of
1587-526: The Collins family moved twice, first to Hampstead Square and then to Porchester Terrace , Bayswater . Wilkie and Charles received their early education from their mother at home. The Collins family were deeply religious, and Collins's mother enforced strict church attendance on her sons, which Wilkie disliked. In 1835, Collins began attending school at the Maida Vale academy. From 1836 to 1838, he lived with his parents in Italy and France, which made
1656-560: The Inuit evidence, he attacked the Inuit character using racist stereotypes, writing: "We believe every savage in his heart covetous, treacherous, and cruel: and we have yet to learn what knowledge the white man—lost, houseless, shipless, apparently forgotten by his race, plainly famine-stricken, weak, frozen and dying—has of the gentleness of Exquimaux nature." Jen Hill writes that Dickens's "invocation of racialized stereotypes of cannibalistic behavior foregrounded Rae's own foreignness." John Rae
1725-684: The Lady , serialised in the Graphic from September to March 1875, was followed by a short novel, The Haunted Hotel , which was serialised from June to November 1878. His later novels include Jezebel's Daughter (1880), The Black Robe (1881), Heart and Science (1883), and The Evil Genius (1886). In 1884, Collins was elected vice-president of the Society of Authors, which had been founded by his friend and fellow novelist Walter Besant . The inconsistent quality of Collins's dramatic and fictional works in
1794-418: The Reeds' playbills "settled into a format, which continued even after Parry retired in 1869: a musical monologue to piano accompaniment by Parry ... preceded and/or followed by a musical piece, later two, often farcical, often a pocket operetta". In the 1850s and 1860s theatres were regarded by a substantial part of society as not respectable. The historian Andrew Crowther writes, "Many who would gladly attend
1863-671: The United States. Its only other revival was in 2005 at the Edinburgh Festival , when a completely new dramatic version, adapted in turn from Collins's prose version, was staged by the Ironduke company. Described as "dark and moody" by reviewers, it was not a particular success, although in the wake of its appearance Collins's novella came back into print for the first time in many decades. Wilkie Collins William Wilkie Collins (8 January 1824 – 23 September 1889)
1932-584: The Year Round and dramatised at the Adelphi Theatre in the West End on 26 December. It enjoyed a run of 200 nights before being taken on tour. The Moonstone was serialised in All the Year Round from January to August 1868. His mother, Harriet Collins, died in that year. In 1870, Collins' novel Man and Wife was published. That year Charles Dickens died, which caused him great sadness. He said of
2001-571: The author of The Woman in White . Caroline Graves died in 1895 and was buried with Collins. Martha Rudd died in 1919. In 1858 Collins began living with Caroline Graves and her daughter Harriet. Caroline came from a humble family, having married young, had a child, and been widowed. Collins lived close to the small shop kept by Caroline, and the two may have met in the neighbourhood in the mid–1850s. He treated Harriet, whom he called Carrie, as his own daughter, and helped to provide for her education. Excepting one short separation, they lived together for
2070-615: The beginning of 1863, he travelled with Caroline Graves to German spas and Italy for his health. In 1864, he began work on his novel Armadale , travelling in August to the Norfolk Broads and the village of Winterton-on-Sea to do research for it. It was published serially in The Cornhill Magazine in 1864–1866. His play No Thoroughfare , co-written with Dickens, was published as the 1867 Christmas number of All
2139-561: The book have different narrators, each with a distinct narrative voice. Armadale has this to a lesser extent through the correspondence between some characters. Royal Gallery of Illustration The Royal Gallery of Illustration was a 19th-century performance venue located at 14 Regent Street in London. It was in use between 1850 and 1873. The gallery was built in the 1820s by the architect John Nash as part of his own house, to display his considerable collection of paintings. In 1850
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2208-488: The building was named the Gallery of Illustration, and between then and 1855 it housed a diorama created and run by the theatrical scene-painters Thomas Grieve and William Telbin. From 1856 to 1873 the gallery was in the hands of the singer and actress Priscilla Horton and her husband German Reed . Their entertainments developed from songs and comedy with piano accompaniment to programmes of short plays and operettas. In deference to respectable mid-Victorian doubts about
2277-549: The company for more than five years. Collins started writing and published his first story, "The Last Stage Coachman", in the Illuminated Magazine in August 1843. In 1844 he travelled to Paris with Charles Ward. That same year he wrote his first novel, Iolani, or Tahiti as It Was; a Romance , which was submitted to Chapman and Hall but rejected in 1845. The novel remained unpublished during his lifetime. Collins said of it: "My youthful imagination ran riot among
2346-564: The composers in addition to Reed, Parry, Macfarren, Sullivan, Gabriel and Clay were Alfred Cellier and James Molloy . The Reeds' lease of the gallery expired at the end of July 1873, and the building ceased to be used as a performance space. The programme for the last night there, on 31 July, comprised Mildred's Well; or A Romance of the Middle Ages by Burnand and Reed, Very Catching by Burnand and Molloy, and Our Garden Party by Corney Grain . The Reeds moved to St George's Hall at
2415-540: The experiment came to an end. At the gallery the Reeds staged nine pieces by William Brough , seven by F. C. Burnand , and five by W. S. Gilbert , whose Ages Ago (1869, with music by Frederic Clay ) was the Reeds' longest-running and most frequently revived production, narrowly outdistancing Burnand and Arthur Sullivan 's Cox and Box . Other authors whose works were presented there included Shirley Brooks , Henry Chorley , James Planché , Robert Reece , T. W. Robertson , Bolton Rowe and Tom Taylor . Among
2484-444: The finished play to Dickens, who enthusiastically took over the production. Dickens played Aaron Gurnock, the head lightkeeper, and arranged for Clarkson Stanfield to paint the backdrop. Other parts were taken by Collins, Augustus Egg , Mark Lemon , Mary Dickens and Georgina Hogarth . The production ran for four nights at Tavistock House, from 16 June 1855, followed by a single performance on 10 July at Campden House, Kensington. It
2553-703: The first portrayals of a deaf character in English literature. As did many writers of his time, Collins first published most of his novels as serials in magazines such as Dickens's All the Year Round , and was known as a master of the form, creating just the right degree of suspense to keep his audience reading from week to week. The Lighthouse was a melodrama loosely based on Collins's 1853 short story, "Gabriel's Marriage", but set in Eddystone Lighthouse in December 1748. In May 1855, Collins sent
2622-602: The friends' early days together, "We saw each other every day, and were as fond of each other as men could be." The Woman in White was dramatised and produced at the Olympic Theatre in October 1871. Collins's novel Poor Miss Finch was serialised in Cassell's Magazine from October to March 1872. His short novel Miss or Mrs.? was published in the 1871 Christmas number of the Graphic . His novel The New Magdalen
2691-528: The gallery early in their careers. The lease of the building expired in 1873, and it ceased to be used as a performance venue. The Reeds moved to another theatre, and the gallery became a banqueting hall. The gallery was built by the architect John Nash , designer of Regent Street , Regent's Park , and other urban improvements undertaken to the commission of King George IV . The gallery was part of Nash's own residence at 14 Regent Street, completed in 1824. It originally housed copies of paintings by Raphael in
2760-430: The gallery for seventeen years, in what were first billed as "Miss P. Horton's Illustrative Gatherings" and then "Mr and Mrs German Reed's Entertainments". They quickly became public favourites: in 1859 The Daily News observed: In 1860 the Reeds were joined by John Parry , a former concert singer and subsequently an entertainer known for his impressions of popular performers. The historian Jane W. Stedman writes that
2829-558: The last 20 years of his life Collins divided his time between Caroline, who lived with him at his home in Gloucester Place , and Martha, who was nearby. Collins was a professing Christian. Collins's works were classified at the time as sensation novels , a genre that became the precursor to detective and suspense fiction. He also wrote penetratingly on the plight of women and on the social and domestic issues of his time. For example, his 1854 Hide and Seek contained one of
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2898-402: The last decade of his life was accompanied by a general decline in his health, including diminished eyesight. He was often unable to leave home and had difficulty writing. During these last years, he focused on mentoring younger writers, including the novelist Hall Caine . He also used his legal background to help protect other writers from copyright infringement of their works. His writing became
2967-603: The last resource—cannibalism—as a means of prolonging survival." This blunt report was presented under the assumption that truth would be preferred to uncertainty. The Admiralty made this report public. Rae's report caused much distress and anger. The public mistakenly believed, with Lady Franklin , that the Arctic explorer was "clean, Christian and genteel" and that an Englishman was able to "survive anywhere" and "to triumph over any adversity through faith, scientific objectivity, and superior spirit." Dickens not only wrote to discredit
3036-712: The lease of the building. They opened it in March as the Gallery of Illustration , offering a diorama display with expert commentary and music. The first show, "Diorama of the Overland Route to India", opened in March 1850 and was a success with critics and public. A reviewer wrote: The Morning Chronicle reported in October that the show "continues to attract overflowing audiences to the Gallery of Illustration in Regent-street. Its extensive popularity, however,
3105-434: The market value of an author whose success on the competitive Victorian literary market had been waning in the wake of his first perceived masterpiece. Viewed by many as the advent of the detective story within the tradition of the English novel, The Moonstone remains one of Collins's most acclaimed works. It was described later by T. S. Eliot as "the first, the longest, and the best of modern English detective novels... in
3174-550: The members of the expedition were lost without trace. In October 1854, John Rae (using reports from " Eskimo " ( Inuit ) eyewitnesses, who informed that they had seen 40 "white men" and later 35 corpses) described the fate of the Franklin expedition in a confidential report to the Admiralty : "From the mutilated state of many of the corpses and the contents of the kettles it is evident that our wretched countrymen had been driven to
3243-455: The noble savages, in scenes which caused the respectable British publisher to declare that it was impossible to put his name on the title page of such a novel." While Collins was writing this novel, his father first learned that his son would not follow him in becoming a painter. William Collins had intended his first son to become a clergyman and was disappointed in Wilkie's lack of interest in
3312-475: The north of England, was serialised in Household Words in October 1857. In 1858 Collins collaborated with Dickens and other writers on the story " A House to Let ". According to Collins's biographer Melisa Klimaszewski, The novels Collins published in the 1860s are the best and most enduring of his career. The Woman in White , No Name , Armadale , and The Moonstone , written in less than
3381-549: The opposite end of Regent Street; the gallery became the banqueting hall of the Pall Mall Restaurant , which occupied the site until 1883, when the building was leased by the new Constitutional Club . The historical importance of the gallery is chiefly its role in the early careers and development of leading authors, composers and performers. Several future stars had their start in the Reeds' company, including Arthur Cecil , Corney Grain and Fanny Holland . Few of
3450-526: The parts, and for whom he would later leave his wife Catherine . The play remained unpublished until a private printing appeared sometime in 1866. The play's genesis lay in the conflict between Dickens and John Rae's report on the fate of the Franklin expedition . In May 1845, the "Franklin expedition" left England in search of the Northwest Passage . It was last seen in July 1845, after which
3519-561: The performance, especially Dickens's acting, in her diary. Additional performances at the same venue were given on 11, 18 and 25 July. When Dickens realised that, despite expensive ticket prices, insufficient funds had been raised to sustain Mrs. Jerrold, he arranged for a series of much larger public performances at the Manchester Free Trade Hall . It was for these that Dickens, convinced that his amateur actresses, including his daughters Kate and Mary Dickens , would not be able to project in such
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#17327764408153588-706: The profession. At his father's insistence, Collins instead entered Lincoln's Inn in 1846, to study law; his father wanted him to have a steady income. Collins showed only a slight interest in law and spent most of his time with friends and on working on a second novel, Antonina, or the Fall of Rome . After his father's death in 1847, Collins produced his first published book, Memoirs of the Life of William Collins, Esq., R. A. , published in 1848. The family moved to 38 Blandford Square soon afterwards, where they used their drawing room for amateur theatricals. In 1849, Collins exhibited
3657-551: The propriety of theatres, the Reeds called their productions "entertainments" , and avoided the use of the words "theatre", "play" and other theatrical terms. Under the Reeds the gallery played an important part in the development of a new generation of authors, composers and performers. Among the writers whose works the Reeds staged were W. S. Gilbert and F. C. Burnand , and their composers included Arthur Sullivan , Frederic Clay and Alfred Cellier . The performers Arthur Cecil , Corney Grain and Fanny Holland made their names at
3726-575: The rest of Collins's life. Collins disliked the institution of marriage, but remained dedicated to Caroline and Harriet, considering them to be his family. Caroline had wanted to marry Collins. She left him while he wrote The Moonstone when he was suffering an attack of acute gout. She married a younger man named Joseph Clow, but after two years, she returned to Collins. In 1868, Collins met Martha Rudd in Winterton-on-Sea in Norfolk, and
3795-662: The rest of his life. He was ill from April to early July. After that he stayed with Dickens in Boulogne from July to September 1853, then toured Switzerland and Italy with Dickens and Egg from October to December. Collins published Hide and Seek in June 1854. During this period Collins extended the variety of his writing, publishing articles in George Henry Lewes 's paper The Leader , short stories and essays for Bentley's Miscellany , as well as dramatic criticism and
3864-501: The role of Wardour. The Frozen Deep was not again produced under the aegis of Dickens. It was briefly revived in a revised version with Wilkie Collins 's blessing in 1866, but was a relative flop, leaving Collins convinced that it should no longer be staged. Instead, he undertook a rewriting of the entire play as a novella, which was published in book form and became a regular text for his successful public readings both in Britain and
3933-626: The staff of Household Words in October 1856. In 1856–57 he collaborated closely with Dickens on a play, The Frozen Deep , first performed in Tavistock . Collins's novel The Dead Secret was serialised in Household Words from January to June 1857, before being published in volume form by Bradbury and Evans . Collins's play The Lighthouse was performed at the Olympic Theatre in August. His account, The Lazy Tour of Two Idle Apprentices, based on Dickens's and Collins's walking tour in
4002-417: The support of his widow and children. The first of these, on 4 July, was a command performance at the Royal Gallery of Illustration for Queen Victoria, Prince Albert , and their family; among the other guests were King Leopold I of Belgium , Prince Frederick William of Prussia , and his fiancée Princess Victoria , along with literary lights William Thackeray and Hans Christian Andersen . Victoria praised
4071-503: The travel book Rambles Beyond Railways. (1851) His first play, The Lighthouse , was performed by Dickens's theatrical company at Tavistock House , in 1855. His first collection of short stories, After Dark , was published by Smith, Elder in February 1856. His novel A Rogue's Life was serialised in Household Words in March 1856. Around then, Collins began using laudanum regularly to treat his gout. He became addicted and struggled with that problem later in life. Collins joined
4140-408: The two began a liaison. She was 19 years old and from a large, poor family. A few years later, she moved to London to be closer to him. Their daughter Marian was born in 1869; their second daughter, Harriet Constance, in 1871; and their son, William Charles, in 1874. When he was with Martha, Collins assumed the name William Dawson, and she and their children used the last name of Dawson themselves. For
4209-423: Was a Scot, not English, and thus held to not be "pledged to the patriotic, empire-building aims of the military." The play by Dickens and Wilkie Collins , The Frozen Deep , was an allegorical play about the missing Arctic expedition. The Rae character was turned into a suspicious, power-hungry nursemaid who predicted the expedition's doom in her effort to ruin the happiness of the delicate heroine. The Frozen Deep
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#17327764408154278-448: Was an English novelist and playwright known especially for The Woman in White (1859), a mystery novel and early sensation novel , and for The Moonstone (1868), which established many of the ground rules of the modern detective novel and is also perhaps the earliest clear example of the police procedural genre. Born to the London painter William Collins and his wife, Harriet Geddes, he moved with them to Italy when he
4347-501: Was an introduction in March 1851 to Charles Dickens by a mutual friend, the painter Augustus Egg . They became lifelong friends and collaborators. In May of that year, Collins acted with Dickens in Edward Bulwer-Lytton's play Not So Bad As We Seem . Among the audience were Queen Victoria and Prince Albert . Collins's story " A Terribly Strange Bed ", his first contribution to Dickens's journal Household Words ,
4416-425: Was born at 11 New Cavendish Street , London , the son of William Collins , a well-known Royal Academician landscape painter, and his wife, Harriet Geddes. Named after his father, he soon became known by his middle name, which honoured his godfather, the painter David Wilkie . The family moved to Pond Street , Hampstead , in 1826. In 1828 Collins's brother Charles Allston Collins was born. Between 1829 and 1830,
4485-415: Was first performed at Tavistock House at a dress rehearsal on 5 January 1857 for an informal audience of servants and tradespeople. Semi-public performances followed on 6, 8, 12 and 14 January for audiences of about 90 at each, including numerous friends of Dickens and Collins, among them members of Parliament , judges, and ministers. Following the death of Jerrold , Dickens planned benefit performances for
4554-512: Was published in April 1852. In May 1852 he went on tour with Dickens's company of amateur actors, again performing Not So Bad As We Seem , but with a more substantial role. Collins's novel Basil was published by Bentley in November. During the writing of Hide and Seek , in early 1853, Collins suffered what was probably his first attack of gout , a condition from which he would suffer for
4623-478: Was serialised from October 1872 to July 1873. His younger brother, Charles Allston Collins, died later in 1873 at the age of 45. Charles had married Dickens's younger daughter, Kate . In 1873–74, Collins toured the United States and Canada, giving readings of his work. The American writers he met included Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr. , and Mark Twain . He began a friendship with photographer Napoleon Sarony , who took several portraits of him. His novel The Law and
4692-698: Was staged at the Royal Olympic Theatre from 10 August to 17 October 1857, as Collins's first professional production. Robson played Aaron Gurnock and George Vining read the Prologue. An American version opened at the New Theatre, New York, on 21 January 1858. There was an amateur production with Palgrave Simpson on 3 May 1865 at the Royal Bijou Theatre (Lambeth School of Art) and further revivals at Shelley's Boscombe Theatre in
4761-526: Was twelve, living there and in France for two years, learning both Italian and French . He worked initially as a tea merchant . After Antonina , his first novel, was published in 1850, Collins met Charles Dickens , who became his friend and mentor. Some of Collins' work appeared in Dickens' journals Household Words and All the Year Round . They also collaborated on drama and fiction. Collins gained financial stability and an international following by
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