Wilkie Collins: A Brief Life
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A gripping, short biography of the extraordinary Wilkie Collins, author of The Moonstone and The Woman in White, two early masterpieces of mystery and detection
Short and oddly built, with a head too big for his body, extremely near-sighted, unable to stay still, dressed in colorful clothesâWilkie Collins looked distinctly strange. But he was nonetheless a charmer, befriended by the great, loved by children, irresistibly attractive to women, and avidly read by generations of readers. Peter Ackroyd follows his hero, âthe sweetest-tempered of all the Victorian novelists,â from his childhood as the son of a well-known artist to his struggling beginnings as a writer, his years of fame, and his lifelong friendship with the other great London chronicler, Charles Dickens. In addition to his enduring masterpieces, The Moonstoneâoften called the first true detective novelâand the sensational The Woman in White, Collins produced an intriguing array of lesser-known works.
Told with Ackroydâs inimitable verve, this is a ravishingly entertaining life of a great storyteller, full of surprises, rich in humor and sympathetic understanding.
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Peter Ackroyd is an award-winning novelist, as well as a broadcaster, biographer, poet, and historian. He is the author of the acclaimed Thames: Sacred River, London: The Biography, and the first and second volumes of his history of England series, Foundation and Tudors. He holds a CBE award for services to literature.
Gildart Jackson is a professional actor with experience on stage, on screen, and behind the mic. Best known for his role as Gideon on Charmed, he has narrated more than seventy audiobooks and has appeared on Providence, General Hospital, Stargate: Atlantis, Las Vegas, and CSI as well as in The Seagull, My Fair Lady, and Private Eyes at the Old Globe.
