Wilkie Collins

Wilkie Collins was born in London, England on January 8, 1824. He was the son of a respected landscape painter and was named after David Wilkie, his painter godfather. As a child, Collins traveled to Italy and France with his family between 1836 and 1838. After their return to England, he attended the Maida Hill Academy in 1835 and later Cole's boarding school. Collins completed his education in 1841 and was apprenticed to the tea merchants Antrobus & Co. in the Strand. In 1846, he became a law student at Lincoln's Inn and was called to the bar in 1851, although he never practiced. It was in 1848, a year after his father's death, that he published his first book, 'The Memoirs of the Life of William Collins, Esq., R.A.' to good reviews.

Collins is best known for his novels 'The Woman in White' (1860), 'No Name' (1862), 'Armadale' (1866), and 'The Moonstone' (1868). 'The Moonstone' is considered the first modern English detective novel. Collins was born into a family of painters and lived in Italy and France as a child, where he learned French and Italian. His family enrolled him at the Maida Hill Academy in 1835, but took him to Italy and France with them between 1836 and 1838. He worked as a clerk for a tea merchant and met Charles Dickens in 1851, who became a close friend, mentor, and collaborator. Some of Collins' works were first published in Dickens' journals All the Year Round and Household Words, and the two collaborated on dramatic and fictional works.

Collins achieved financial stability and an international reputation in the 1860s, during which he published his best-known works. However, during the 1870s and 1880s, the quality of his writing declined along with his health. Collins was critical of the institution of marriage and never married. He split his time between Caroline Graves, with whom he had a long-term relationship except for a 2-year separation, and his common-law wife Martha Rudd, with whom he had three children.