The Lazy Tour of Two Idle Apprentices: Wilkie Collins Top Collections

Wilkie Collins

nov. 2015 · Wilkie Collins Top Collections Livre 27 · 谷月社

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In the autumn month of September, eighteen hundred and fifty-seven, wherein these presents bear date, two idle apprentices, exhausted by the long, hot summer, and the long, hot work it had brought with it, ran away from their employer. They were bound to a highly meritorious lady (named Literature), of fair credit and repute, though, it must be acknowledged, not quite so highly esteemed in the City as she might be. This is the more remarkable, as there is nothing against the respectable lady in that quarter, but quite the contrary; her family having rendered eminent service to many famous citizens of London. It may be sufficient to name Sir William Walworth, Lord Mayor under King Richard II., at the time of Wat Tyler’s insurrection, and Sir Richard Whittington: which latter distinguished man and magistrate was doubtless indebted to the lady’s family for the gift of his celebrated cat. There is also strong reason to suppose that they rang the Highgate bells for him with their own hands.

The misguided young men who thus shirked their duty to the mistress from whom they had received many favours, were actuated by the low idea of making a perfectly idle trip, in any direction. They had no intention of going anywhere in particular; they wanted to see nothing, they wanted to know nothing, they wanted to learn nothing, they wanted to do nothing. They wanted only to be idle. They took to themselves (after Hogarth), the names of Mr. Thomas Idle and Mr. Francis Goodchild; but there was not a moral pin to choose between them, and they were both idle in the last degree....

 

 

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 William Wilkie Collins (8 January 1824 – 23 September 1889) was an English novelist, playwright, and author of short stories. His best-known works are The Woman in White (1859), No Name (1862), Armadale (1866), and The Moonstone (1868).

Collins was born into the family of painter William Collins in London. He received his early education at home from his mother, after which he attended an academy and a private boarding school. He also traveled with his family to Italy and France, and learned the French and Italian languages. He served as a clerk in the firm of the tea merchants Antrobus & Co.

His first novel Iolani, or Tahiti as It Was; a Romance, was rejected by publishers in 1845. His next novel, Antonina, was published in 1850. In 1851, he met Charles Dickens, and the two became close friends. A number of Collins' works were first published in Dickens' journals All the Year Round and Household Words. The two collaborated on several dramatic and fictional works, and some of Collins' plays were performed by Dickens' acting company.

Collins published his best known works in the 1860s, achieving financial stability and an international reputation. During this time he began suffering from gout and developed an addiction to opium, which he took (in the form of laudanum) for pain. He continued to publish novels and other works throughout the 1870s and '80s, but the quality of his writing declined along with his health. He died in 1889.