Wilkie Collins

Wilkie Collins was a close friend of Charles Dickens, and his books, while less famous, share many of Dickens’s strengths. (Collins was also less of a tool on the personality front, apparently.) I confess, I find large sections of Collins’s most famous work, The Woman in White, tough going (there are frequent detours into heavy Victorian sentimentality) but The Moonstone, which is only slightly less well-known than The Woman in White, is pure 19th century entertainment.

The Moonstone is a classic McGuffin story, told through several extraordinarily lively and entertaining first-person narratives. The plot dénouement was a little hokey--there is some 19th century pseudo-science involved that’s on a par with Dickens’s “spontaneous combustion” scene--but the rest of the story is an action-packed Victorian roller coaster, complete with romance and horror and mysterious Indians.


Aftertaste:
None, so long as you're in the right mood for a Victorian potboiler.

Availability:
Everywhere... and in a Dover Thrift edition! YAY!

Other Recommendations:
Anything by Charles Dickens