victorian people - wilkie collins

hello all! i swear i meant to post yesterday, but i had no idea what to write about, and by the time i had reached some semblance of a topic i had other plans to attend to. ^^;; i ended up landing on something to write a little blurb about so hopefully this post ends up being a good one! it could be considered a collaborative effort - one of my friends in my brain is lurking around and helping to motivate me - so his way with words may shine through here, though it may run a bit short because i'm still kinda spent. oops! 

by the way, since all of these books are in the public domain, we've linked a few websites where you can go and read them, though you could easily find them in different formats or even check them out as library e-books any time. "the murders in the rue morgue" is a relatively short read that can be finished in one to two sittings, so if you have time to spare we highly recommend it. ^_^

the question of who wrote the first detective novel is a bit of a contentious one. most people probably think of arthur conan doyle's sherlock holmes series, beginning with a study in scarlet in 1887. objectively speaking, the title of "first detective novel" belongs to "the murders in the rue morgue", which, though short, was published by edgar allen poe in 1841. however, there is an alternate answer that lies in some sort of accuracy limbo - neither entirely correct or incorrect - unless we formulate our question to be more specific. who wrote the first detective novel that incorporated the plot devices that we have long since come to associate with the detective genre, like the twists and turns of false alibis and red herrings? wilkie collins, with his novel the moonstone as published in 1868. (fun fact - dickens was so inspired by the moonstone that he started to write his own mystery novel. he died before it was finished, leaving it a true mystery, though, oddly enough, an ending was ... crowdsourced? by the university of buckingham in 2015.) 

but who on earth is wilkie collins, you may ask, and why have i never heard of him? i've totally heard of those other two guys, you may tell yourself, and you probably have. 

born to the artist william collins in 1824, wilkie collins spent some of his early life in italy and france, which apparently helped to foster his creative spirit. during his years in his hometown of london, he attended a private boarding school, where his storytelling endeavors allegedly began to satiate a dormitory bully. in 1848, collins first published work hit the market - memoirs of the life of william collins, esq., r.a.. this book was, just as it sounds, a memoir to his late father, who had died the previous year. only two years later, in 1850, he would publish his first work of fiction - antonina; or, the fall of rome. the story takes place in ancient rome, which may reflect a statement by collins in which he claims to have fallen in love for the first time in rome as a child.

in 1851, collins and fellow author charles dickens began a relationship of both friendship and mutual admiration. the two influenced each other's writing more than most are aware of - where collins contributed his proficiency in creating a suspenseful and serious narrative, dickens contributed humor, character writing, and his own fame. collins ended up writing thirty books in his lifetime as well as many other articles, essays, plays, and short stories. one book in particular that i found interesting was man and wife, which was published in 1870. this book takes a negative stance towards victorian marriage laws, which reflects collins' apparent attitudes on the institution of marriage as a whole - he spent his life with two women, whom he treated in a domestic way but never married.

after dying in 1889 at the age of 65 to complications from a stroke - collins had always had poor health, which declined ever further when he became addicted to the opium he used to treat it - collins faded into relative obscurity, heavily overshadowed by his contemporary dickens. however, it seems he is making a resurgence in the modern age, with some of his works even being reprinted in physical form to return to bookstore shelves once more.

while looking into this topic, i found something really interesting - a serial novel called the notting hill mystery was published after "the murders in the rue morgue" but before the moonstone, perhaps making it the first modern detective novel ever written. however, the novel was written under a pseudonym, and as such, though we in the modern day have our speculations, there is no way to know with absolute certainty who actually wrote it. 

anywho, we hope today's entry wasn't too short. as long as we learned something, our goal has been reached, and i'd say we learned quite a bit.