Wilkie Collins Research Paper

The Victorian Era marked a large step into the modern world and provided some of the most famous writers of all time. The era can characterized by rapid change and more progressive ideals. Wilkie Collins was an author who published many novels through a series of weekly distributed papers, that reflected the rapidly changing time period. Collins’ highly detailed style of sensationalist novels, was truly reflective in his mystery works; riddled with undertones of a truly tragic life in victorian England. His life as well as the strong social class structures of the time are reflected heavily upon in his novel The Moonstone. His ability to critique certain social issues, while also being enveloped within his own hypocrisy, creates a certain skeptical …show more content…
His early life was rather normal, he attended school until about the age of twelve, in which he moved to France and Italy for two years, before moving back to England and continuing school until the age of seventeen. For the majority of his early life he made money as clerk, which was common profession at the time, before writing articles and essays for periodicals. It was apparent since his youth that Collins was plagued with poor health he for his whole life suffered with “rheumatic gout”, “spasm suffocation, and “neuralgia”(Sweet). With these ailments constantly giving him problems with his health, his doctor prescribed him opium. In the sense that Wilkie Collins was a unique individual, nothing can exemplify his ideology more than the connections he made during his life. Wilkie Collins was friends with well known writer Charles Dickens, for who he wrote several periodicals. There friendship persisted up until Collins’ death, and Dickens influence was apparent. As for his love life his interactions with women were oddly peculiar especially for the time. Collins was opposed to traditional marriages and never married rather he had common law marriages, forming relationships mainly with two women during his life, Caroline Graves and Martha Rudd respectively. Caroline Graves along with her daughter lived with Collins most of his adult life, being considered by Collins to be family. While Martha Rudd was his second love interest in which he had his only three children. Though she fathered his children, Martha Rudd never lived with Collins, nor did any of his children share his name. The formulaic man at the time had wife and his children, and on occasions a mistress, but Collins had no marriage or even continuous flings with