Wilkie Collins

First published serially in 1868, Wilkie Collins's "The Moonstone" is generally considered the first full length detective novel in the English language. The Moonstone, a large and valuable, yellow diamond, plundered from an Indian temple by Colonel Herncastle during the Siege of Seringapatam, is rumored to bring bad luck to its owner. The Colonel bequeathes the diamond to his niece Rachel Verinder on her eighteenth birthday. At her birthday party,...

I am going to try if I can't write something about myself. My life has been rather a strange one. It may not seem particularly useful or respectable; but it has been, in some respects, adventurous; and that may give it claims to be read, even in the most prejudiced circles. I am an example of some of the workings of the social system of this illustrious country on the individual native, during the early part of the present century; and, if I may say...

William Wilkie Collins (1824-1889) was an English novelist, playwright, and author of short stories. Mad Monkton is a bizarre ghost story. It is said that a strain of hereditary madness blights the Monkton family, heirs to the huge domain of Wincot Abbey. Rumours in the neighbourhood are that Alfred, the youngest scion, has inherited this insanity. His odd behaviour certainly points that way. Alfred is engaged to his childhood sweetheart, Ada Elmslie. But...

Este audiolibro está narrado en castellano.Incluso en la más honorable mansión británica puede haber un robo. Lady Lydiard todavía no se cree lo que ha pasado, pero lo peor es que todas las sospechas apuntan hacía a su hija adoptiva, Isabel Miller. El abogado de la familia, el señor Troy, va intentar averiguar qué es lo que ha pasado exactamente. Tambien el mayordomo de la casa quiere investigar, y recurre a un viejo timador, conocido por...

« En 1860, la réputation du docteur Wybrow de Londres était arrivée à son apogée. Les gens bien informés affirmaient que de tous les médecins en renom, c'était lui qui gagnait le plus d'argent. Un après-midi, vers la fin de l'été, le docteur venait de finir son déjeuner après une matinée d'un travail excessif. Son cabinet de consultation n'avait pas désempli et il tenait déjà à la main une longue liste de visites à faire lorsque...

When Lord Montbarry dies suddenly in his Venice palace, and his courier goes missing, suspicion is instantly thrown on his new wife, the beautiful Countess Narona, who has collected his life insurance and fled to America. Montbarry's former fiancé Agnes, still harboring feelings for him, and Henry Westwick, Montbarry's younger brother, decide to investigate this tragedy and head for the palace, now a hotel. Not long after their arrival they experience...

Wilkie Collins describes a traveller who has a magic mirror in his possession which enables him to recall scenes from his travels. In a series of amusing sketches he relives various travels in the Tyrol and the Alps before taking a decision about his next holiday destination.

Most of Wilkie Collins' later work was disparaged by the critics for espousing causes. Swinburne commented, 'What brought good Wilkies genius nigh perdition? Some demon whispered - "Wilkie! Have a mission!".' Despite this, the 'novelist of sensation' continued to appeal to the public with the construction of ingenious and meticulous plots. He had been the first to write a full-length detective novel but also wrote love stories, and The Two Destinies...

The Dead Alive, also called John Jago's Ghost, is a novella written in 1874 by the author of The Moonstone and The Woman in White, Wilkie Collins, and is based on the Boorn Brothers murder case. When invalid barrister Phillip LeFrank visits his cousin's farm in America, he's hoping for a quiet convalescence. He is to be seriously disappointed, finding the farm to be a hotbed of jealousy, spite, hidden passions...and apparently; murder. Is his cousin,...

A fascinating short story by the renowned author of The Woman in White, Captain Stanwick and Lionel Varleigh are old friends, but after falling out over their attentions to Bertha Laroche, they fight an illegal duel in Herne Wood. Stanwick, wrongly convinced he has killed Varleigh, goes mad and attempts to kill himself with a razor … when his supposed victim returns like an apparition from the dead.