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Reading lists

The best classic crime books of all time

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Beautiful horror books from our Clothbound Classics collection

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Long books that are worth every minute of reading

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Horror stories to listen to with the lights on

The essential Halloween reading list in 10 books 

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8 classic and chilling tales

The Woman in White

A beautiful deluxe gift edition of the great Victorian mystery novel with foiled covers, marbled endpapers, sprayed edges, beautiful paper and finished with a silk ribbon. 
 
Marian and her sister Laura live a quiet life under their uncle’s guardianship until Laura’s marriage to Sir Percival Glyde. Sir Percival is a man of many secrets – is one of them connected to the strange appearances of a young woman dressed all in white? And what does his charismatic friend, Count Fosco, with his pet white mice running in and out of his brightly coloured waistcoat, have to do with it all? Marian and the girls’ drawing master, Walter, have to turn detective in order to work out what is going on, and to protect Laura from a fatal plot… 
 
This hardback is part of VINTAGE COLLECTOR’S CLASSICS, a series of luxurious books especially crafted for collectors and fans of beautiful special editions. Sumptuous design meets the highest quality production. Discover timeless classics beautifully bound for every bookshelf. 
 
**The ultimate beautiful classic, a gift for all book lovers**

Wilkie Collins was born in London on 8 January 1824. His father was the landscape painter William Collins. After school he worked for a tea merchant before studying to become a lawyer. In 1848 he published a biography of his father and his first novel, Antonina, followed in 1850. In 1851 he met Charles Dickens who would later edit and publish some of his novels. Collins's novels were extremely popular in his own time as well as now. The Woman in White (1859), No Name (1862), Armadale (1866) and The Moonstone (1868) are his best known works. Collins was linked with two women (one of whom bore him three children) but he never married. He died on 23 September 1889.

A beautiful deluxe gift edition of the great Victorian mystery novel with foiled covers, marbled endpapers, sprayed edges, beautiful paper and finished with a silk ribbon. 
 
Marian and her sister Laura live a quiet life under their uncle’s guardianship until Laura’s marriage to Sir Percival Glyde. Sir Percival is a man of many secrets – is one of them connected to the strange appearances of a young woman dressed all in white? And what does his charismatic friend, Count Fosco, with his pet white mice running in and out of his brightly coloured waistcoat, have to do with it all? Marian and the girls’ drawing master, Walter, have to turn detective in order to work out what is going on, and to protect Laura from a fatal plot… 
 
This hardback is part of VINTAGE COLLECTOR’S CLASSICS, a series of luxurious books especially crafted for collectors and fans of beautiful special editions. Sumptuous design meets the highest quality production. Discover timeless classics beautifully bound for every bookshelf.

Ten Classic Full-Cast BBC Radio Crime Dramas

Murder International

Ten vintage dramas on the theme of murder, written by internationally recognised authors and set across the globe 
 
‘Murder is murder, anywhere in the world. The taking of life, the most terrible crime a human being can commit, is the same in any language, whether it springs from vengeance, greed, hate, love or whatever...’ 
 
Conceived by BBC World Service producer Derek Hoddinott, the 1976 anthology series Murder International comprised half-hour adaptations of famous murder mysteries by world-renowned writers past and present, set in locations ranging from Corsica to St Petersburg, Malaysia, France and Spain. Collected here are ten of those thrilling dramas, each with a different theme, ranging from ‘murder by the supernatural’ to ‘murder by duel’. Bringing them to life are a host of leading actors including Denis Quilley, Maureen O'Brien, George Cole, Christopher Cazenove, Joss Ackland, Michael Denison and George Baker. 
 
In The Hand by Guy Maupassant, an English aristocrat awaits his nemesis – alongside a gruesome trophy from his days in Africa. 
 
Mess, by Francis King, sees an adolescent boy taking extreme measures to escape his chaotic home life. 
 
The Queen of Spades by Alexander Pushkin finds a high-stakes gambler risking his life and his sanity when he discovers the secret of how to win at cards. 
 
Face to face with the state assassin, a dissident writer defends his right to free speech in Friedrich Dürrenmatt’s Conversation at Night. 
 
Three men, maddened by greed for gold, turn on each other in The Treasure in the Forest by H.G. Wells. 
 
Serial wife-killer Clayton Allenby meets his match with bride number four in Julian Symons’ The Accident. 
 
The youngest son of the Monkton family seems afflicted with hereditary madness in Wilkie Collins’ Mad Monkton – but is he insane, or cursed? 
 
The Executioner, by Honoré de Balzac, centres on a young Captain in the Napoleonic wars, who is ordered to carry out a terrible crime. 
 
Somerset Maugham’s Footprints in the Jungle concerns a charming married couple with a shocking skeleton in their closet. 
 
In Stacy Aumonier’s The Fall, when a petty crook turns murderer, Inspector Tolozan uses the man’s greatest fear to extract a confession... 
 
First broadcast BBC Radio, 4 21 July - 29 September 1976 
 
With warm thanks to Keith Wickham and the Radio Circle 
 
NB: Some of the language on these vintage recordings reflects the era in which it was first broadcast, and due to the age of the source material, the sound quality may vary 
 
Conversation at Night © 1986 by Diogenes Verlag AG, Zurich 
© 2026 BBC Studios Distribution Ltd. (P) 2026 BBC Studios Distribution Ltd

Dramatisations and readings of his sensational stories including The Woman in White & The Moonstone

The Wilkie Collins BBC Radio Collection

BBC radio productions of the finest works of Wilkie Collins: sensation novelist, early master of the mystery story, and pioneer of detective fiction 
 
Wilkie Collins was one of Victorian England's best-loved and best-selling authors, and a crime fiction pioneer. His enthralling 'sensation novels' such as The Woman in White paved the way for today's thrillers, and his tour de force The Moonstone is one of the first, and greatest, modern detective stories. 
 
This collection features dramatisations of these two masterpieces, with star casts including Toby Stephens (The Woman in White) and John Sharp (The Moonstone). Also included are adaptations of three of Collins' other major novels: No Name, The Law and the Lady and The Haunted Hotel, starring Sophie Thompson, Abigail Docherty and Henry Lloyd respectively. 
 
Collins was a prolific short story writer, and included here are a number of his shorter tales, such as a full-cast dramatisation of the ghost story 'Mad Monkton', starring Gary Bond, and readings of five tales of suspense: 'The Dream Woman' (read by David Suchet), 'The Biter Bit' (read by John Rowe), 'A Terribly Strange Bed' (read by Paul Daneman), 'The Stolen Letter' (read by Garard Green) and 'The Dead Hand' (read by Peter Marinker). Plus, the darkly comic 'Mrs Badgery' is read by Christopher Harper, while Ronald Pickup reads the murder mystery 'Who Killed Zebedee?', taken from the 1887 short story collection Little Novels. There are also dramatisations of five additional Little Novels tales: 'Miss Jeromette and the Clergyman', 'Mr Marmaduke and the Minister', 'Miss Bertha and the Yankee', 'Miss Morris and the Stranger' and 'Mr Percy and the Prophet', all starring Ronald Pickup as Wilkie Collins. 
 
A lifelong friend of Charles Dickens, Collins collaborated with him on several works including 'A House to Let', which was co-written by Collins, Dickens, Elizabeth Gaskell and Adelaide Anne Proctor. Marcia Warren stars in an adaptation of this exciting tale of secrets and intrigue. 
 
Finally, in Night Waves: The Woman in White, Matthew Sweet joins Simon Callow, Kate Summerscale, Paul Lewis and Lisa Appignanesi to discuss the groundbreaking novel that catapulted Collins to literary stardom, exploring its lasting influence and asking how it stands up today. 
 
 
Contents 
1. The Woman in White 
2. No Name 
3. The Moonstone 
4. The Law and the Lady 
5. The Haunted Hotel 
6. 'Mad Monkton' 
7. 'The Dream Woman' 
8. 'The Biter Bit' 
9. 'A Terribly Strange Bed' 
10. 'The Stolen Letter' 
11. 'The Dead Hand' 
12. 'Mrs Badgery' 
13. 'A House to Let' 
14. 'Who Killed Zebedee?' 
15. 'Miss Jeromette and the Clergyman' 
16. 'Mr Marmaduke and the Minister' 
17. 'Miss Bertha and the Yankee' 
18. 'Miss Morris and the Stranger' 
19. 'Mr Percy and the Prophet' 
20. 'Night Waves: The Woman in White' 
 
 
(p) 2021 BBC Studios Distribution Ltd 
© 2021 BBC Studios Distribution Ltd

BBC radio productions of the finest works of Wilkie Collins: sensation novelist, early master of the mystery story, and pioneer of detective fiction 
 
Wilkie Collins was one of Victorian England's best-loved and best-selling authors, and a crime fiction pioneer. His enthralling 'sensation novels' such as The Woman in White paved the way for today's thrillers, and his tour de force The Moonstone is one of the first, and greatest, modern detective stories. 
 
This collection features dramatisations of these two masterpieces, with star casts including Toby Stephens (The Woman in White) and John Sharp (The Moonstone). Also included are adaptations of three of Collins' other major novels: No Name, The Law and the Lady and The Haunted Hotel, starring Sophie Thompson, Abigail Docherty and Henry Lloyd respectively. 
 
Collins was a prolific short story writer, and included here are a number of his shorter tales, such as a full-cast dramatisation of the ghost story 'Mad Monkton', starring Gary Bond, and readings of five tales of suspense: 'The Dream Woman' (read by David Suchet), 'The Biter Bit' (read by John Rowe), 'A Terribly Strange Bed' (read by Paul Daneman), 'The Stolen Letter' (read by Garard Green) and 'The Dead Hand' (read by Peter Marinker). Plus, the darkly comic 'Mrs Badgery' is read by Christopher Harper, while Ronald Pickup reads the murder mystery 'Who Killed Zebedee?', taken from the 1887 short story collection Little Novels. There are also dramatisations of five additional Little Novels tales: 'Miss Jeromette and the Clergyman', 'Mr Marmaduke and the Minister', 'Miss Bertha and the Yankee', 'Miss Morris and the Stranger' and 'Mr Percy and the Prophet', all starring Ronald Pickup as Wilkie Collins. 
 
A lifelong friend of Charles Dickens, Collins collaborated with him on several works including 'A House to Let', which was co-written by Collins, Dickens, Elizabeth Gaskell and Adelaide Anne Proctor. Marcia Warren stars in an adaptation of this exciting tale of secrets and intrigue. 
 
Finally, in Night Waves: The Woman in White, Matthew Sweet joins Simon Callow, Kate Summerscale, Paul Lewis and Lisa Appignanesi to discuss the groundbreaking novel that catapulted Collins to literary stardom, exploring its lasting influence and asking how it stands up today. 
 
 
Contents 
1. The Woman in White 
2. No Name 
3. The Moonstone 
4. The Law and the Lady 
5. The Haunted Hotel 
6. 'Mad Monkton' 
7. 'The Dream Woman' 
8. 'The Biter Bit' 
9. 'A Terribly Strange Bed' 
10. 'The Stolen Letter' 
11. 'The Dead Hand' 
12. 'Mrs Badgery' 
13. 'A House to Let' 
14. 'Who Killed Zebedee?' 
15. 'Miss Jeromette and the Clergyman' 
16. 'Mr Marmaduke and the Minister' 
17. 'Miss Bertha and the Yankee' 
18. 'Miss Morris and the Stranger' 
19. 'Mr Percy and the Prophet' 
20. 'Night Waves: The Woman in White' 
 
 
(p) 2021 BBC Studios Distribution Ltd 
© 2021 BBC Studios Distribution Ltd

Abridged Edition

Penguin Readers Level 7: The Woman in White (ELT Graded Reader)

Penguin Readers is an ELT graded reading series for teenagers and young adults learning English as a foreign language. 
 
- Carefully adapted text. 
 
- Accompanying audio and digital version with the print edition, accessed securely online. 
 
- The series includes popular classics, bestselling modern fiction, and thought-provoking non-fiction. 
 
- The eight levels of Penguin Readers are mapped to the CEFR, and Lexile measured. 
 
- Beautiful new illustrations for levels 2 to 6. Starter and level 1 titles in graphic-novel format, for beginner learners. 
 
- Language practice exercises and a glossary in every book, additional activities and lesson plans online. 
 
- Visit the Penguin Readers website: www.penguinreaders.co.uk 
 
The Woman in White, a Level 7 Reader, is B2 in the CEFR framework. 
 
One night when Walter Hartwright is walking home, he meets and helps the mysterious 'woman in white'. Soon after this meeting, Walter starts a job as a drawing teacher in the north of England and falls in love with his student, Laura Fairlie. But Laura is engaged to Sir Percival Glyde. Then Laura receives a letter warning her not to marry Glyde. Walter is sure that the letter comes from the woman in white...

William Wilkie Collins (8 January 1824 - 23 September 1889) was an English novelist, playwright, and short story writer. His best-known works are The Woman in White (1859), No Name (1862), Armadale (1866), and The Moonstone (1868), considered the first modern English detective novel.

Penguin Readers introduces language learners to bestselling authors and compelling content. The Woman in White, a Level 7 Reader, is B2 in the CEFR framework. One night when Walter Hartwright is walking home, he meets and helps the mysterious 'woman in white'. Soon after this meeting, Walter starts a job as a drawing teacher in the north of England and falls in love with his student, Laura Fairlie. But Laura is engaged to Sir Percival Glyde. Then Laura receives a letter warning her not to marry Glyde. Walter is sure that the letter comes from the woman in white...

Four BBC Radio 4 crime dramatisations

The Lady Detectives

A series of BBC Radio short stories, comprising of classic and period dramas featuring four female sleuths to rival Sherlock Holmes himself.

Wilkie Collins was born in London on 8 January 1824. His father was the landscape painter William Collins. After school he worked for a tea merchant before studying to become a lawyer. In 1848 he published a biography of his father and his first novel, Antonina, followed in 1850. In 1851 he met Charles Dickens who would later edit and publish some of his novels. Collins's novels were extremely popular in his own time as well as now. The Woman in White (1859), No Name (1862), Armadale (1866) and The Moonstone (1868) are his best known works. Collins was linked with two women (one of whom bore him three children) but he never married. He died on 23 September 1889.

A series of BBC Radio short stories, comprising of classic and period dramas featuring four female sleuths to rival Sherlock Holmes himself. 
 
The Redhill Sisterhood by Catherine Louisa Pirkis 
Autumn,1897. Victorian undercover agent Loveday Brooke investigates some suspicious nuns who appear to have forsaken their vows – and turned to burglary. 
 
Mr Bovey’s Unexpected Will by LT Meade and Robert Eustace 
Brilliant, beautiful Miss Florence Cusack is one of Victorian London’s most respected consulting detectives. Here, she investigates the extraordinary case of a man whose fate depends on his weight in gold. 
 
The Golden Slipper by Anna Katharine Green 
Vivacious debutante Violet Strange sparkles in New York society – but leads a secret life as a professional agency detective. In this case from 1910, she investigates 'The Inseparables', four wealthy young women suspected of a series of thefts. 
 
The Law and the Lady by Wilkie Collins 
In this sensational Gothic tale from the author of The Woman in White and The Moonstone, new bride Valeria Woodville sets out to clear her husband of murdering his first wife. 
 
Starring Gayanne Potter as Loveday Brooke, Elizabeth Conboy as Florence Cusack, Teresa Gallagher as Violet Strange and Abigail Docherty as Valeria Woodville.

'The most popular novel of the nineteenth century, and still one of the best plots in English literature' Sarah Waters

The most popular novel of the 19th century, and still one of the best plots in English literature. Notable for its marvellous villains and, like all Collins's work, for its complex, spirited and believable female characters

The various women of the book - in white and otherwise - are wonderfully real

To Mr Collins belongs the credit of having introduced into ficiton those most mysterious of mysteries, the mysteries which are at our own doors

The Woman in White...is a stay-up-all-night page-turner from 1859 that rivals any thriller written since

Jennifer Egan, author of A VISIT FROM GOON SQUAD

'The most popular novel of the nineteenth century, and still one of the best plots in English literature' Sarah Waters 
 
 Marian and her sister Laura live a quiet life under their uncle's guardianship until Laura's marriage to Sir Percival Glyde. Sir Percival is a man of many secrets – is one of them connected to the strange appearances of a young woman dressed all in white? And what does his charismatic friend, Count Fosco, with his pet white mice running in and out of his brightly coloured waistcoat, have to do with it all? Marian and the girls' drawing master, Walter, have to turn detective in order to work out what is going on, and to protect Laura from a fatal plot . . .

The Moonstone

'The first...and the best of modern English detective novels' T. S. Eliot

A whodunit about a lost jewel with several different narrators 'the first English detective story' is so ingenious, so melodramatically rational, so druggy and glittery and cleverly elusive, that it triumphs over all its impersonators

A great, bold, theatrical mystery story which never falters, written with huge confidence and style

Wilkie Collins, along with Arthur Conan Doyle and Charles Dickens is generally acknowledged to be the great-great-grandfather of the modern mystery, but it's hard to think of many modern mysteries as skillfully shaped and psychologically keen as this one. The story flirts with the conventions of Victorian melodrama, but the characters that people it are truly vivid

No wonder 21st-century novelists are influenced by the great Victorian serial writers with their rip-roaring plots. A twisting detective thriller

The Moonstone is the first detective yarn with, in Sergeant Cuff, the original maverick detective

Wilkie Collins (Author) Wilkie Collins was born in London on 8 January 1824. His father was the landscape painter William Collins. After school he worked for a tea merchant before studying to become a lawyer. In 1848 he published a biography of his father and his first novel, Antonina, followed in 1850. In 1851 he met Charles Dickens who would later edit and publish some of his novels. Collins's novels were extremely popular in his own time as well as now. The Woman in White (1859), No Name (1862), Armadale (1866) and The Moonstone (1868) are his best known works. Collins was linked with two women (one of whom bore him three children) but he never married. He died on 23 September 1889. Audrey Niffenegger (Introducer) Audrey Niffenegger is a visual artist and writer who lives mostly in Chicago and occasionally in London. She has published six books, including the novels The Time Traveler's Wife and Her Fearful Symmetry. She helped to found the Columbia College Chicago Center for Book and Paper Arts. Her art has been exhibited by Printworks Gallery in Chicago since 1986. She is a Professor in the Fiction Department of Columbia College. Her recent projects include a ballet, Raven Girl, in collaboration with Wayne McGregor for the Royal Opera House Ballet.

'The first, the longest, and the best of modern English detective novels' T S Eliot 
 
When Rachel Verinder receives a gift of an astonishing yellow diamond from her bitter old uncle for her eighteenth birthday, she has no idea that the stone brings great danger with it. When the diamond goes missing during the night the ensuing investigations gradually bring to light the sinister history of the jewel and the passions and plots of those close to Rachel. 
 
 
'Probably the very finest detective story ever written' Dorothy L. Sayers 
 
**AS DISCUSSED ON BBC2'S BETWEEN THE COVERS**

No Name

'A very good thriller...I enjoyed it immensely' William Trevor, Guardian

Magdalen, a woman who resists the Victorian idea of the angel in the house and proves to be unscrupulous in her fight for survival against poverty and prejudice, employing disguise and deceit to win back what she believes is rightfully hers

Dizzyingly readable, with a feminist anti-heroine up to all sorts of deception and skulduggery, cheered along by the reader every step of the way

Two dispossessed sisters fight for their inheritance, the narrative snaking compellingly around Victorian Britain

Collins explores the iniquity of Victorian morality by damning the future of his resourceful heroine at an early stage with the discovery of her own illegitimacy. Deprived of her inheritance and even her name, Magdalen Vanstone sets out with frightening courage to reestablish her fortune and reputation. The ingenuity and guile she employs to achieve her end makes her a rare figure in Victorian literature and one of Collins' most subversive characters

'A masterpiece' The Times 
 
After the tragic deaths of their parents, Magdalen and Norah discover the devastating news that they are both illegitimate and not entitled to any inheritance. Norah is forced to become a governess to earn her keep but Magdalen has grander plans and embarks on an elaborate scheme of revenge against her cold-hearted relatives. 
 
INCLUDES 'MRS ZANT AND THE GHOST'

The Haunted Hotel

An enigmatic countess with a wicked past, a terrible crime, a shadowy Venetian palazzo and a grisly apparition demanding vengeance - all the ingredients for a vintage Gothic horror tale.

In Venice, a fashionable hotel is haunted by the crime it was built to conceal.  A woman walks into a London consulting room with a question no doctor can easily answer: is she evil, or is she mad? From that uneasy beginning, Wilkie Collins draws the reader into a Victorian Gothic mystery where marriage, money, suspicion and supernatural dread gather around a palace on the Grand Canal.  Lord Montbarry dies in Venice, apparently from illness. An Italian courier vanishes. A grieving wife receives money from an unknown hand. Months later, the palace has become a fashionable hotel, yet Room 14 remains marked by whispers, illness and visions no guest can comfortably explain.  A classic haunted-house story, The Haunted Hotel deals in London society, Venetian secrecy and family unease with Collins’s gift for suspense and moral ambiguity. This edition also includes The Dream Woman, a compact tale where nightmare, premonition and domestic terror combine in a spine-chilling tale.

Alchemy, premonitions, disappearances, madness, supernatural sightings and even a whiff of incest combine...a pleasingly nasty affair

An atmospheric and ghostly evocation of a wintry Venice in the 1800s

Wilkie Collins is the finest practitioner of the novel of sensation... he took the elements gothic fiction relied upon - secret lives, lovers, villainy - and moved them into the suburbs... here the genre fused with the already established crime novel and took it in a new direction, more familiar and more frightening

Wilkie Collins [drew] on the conventions of blood and thunder melodrama but subtly let the reader know he's having fun with the game

BBC Radio 4 full-cast dramatisation

Toby Stephens and Juliet Aubrey star in a BBC Radio 4 full-cast dramatisation of Wilkie Collins’ chilling Gothic drama.

Wilkie Collins was born in 1824 in London, the son of the landscape painter William Collins. He was educated at private schools in London and travelled in Italy for two years with his family. 
 In 1846 he was called to the bar, but his real interest lay in writing. His first book, a memoir of his father published in 1848, was followed by a historical novel, Antonia: or, The Fall of Rome (1850), and Rambles Beyond Railways (1851) which detailed a walking tour in Cornwall. 
 In 1851 Collins met Charles Dickens and began contributing to his literature periodicals, Household Words and All the Year Round. Together they wrote two melodramas, The Lighthouse (1855) and The Frozen Deep (1857). Collins’ own work consisted mainly of short stories and novels; these included Hide and Seek (1854), The Dead Secret (1857), The Woman in White (1860), Armadale (1866) and The Moonstone (1868). The 1860s saw him hone his craft as a master of suspense and mystery. 
 Although Collins’ popularity remained high for the duration of his writing career, critically his later works were thought to be inferior. He was dogged by ill health towards the end of his life and was reportedly addicted to opium. He died in 1889 and his last novel, Blind Love (1890) was posthumously completed by Walter Besant.

Toby Stephens and Juliet Aubrey star in a BBC Radio 4 full-cast dramatisation of Wilkie Collins’ chilling Gothic drama 
 
A lonely stretch of road on Hampstead Heath is the venue for Walter Hartright’s midnight first encounter with a mysteriously distressed figure in white. As he helps the woman to escape from unnamed pursuers, he has little understanding of the way she will affect his future. 
 
At Limmeridge House, in Cumberland, Walter meets and falls in love with Laura, who strangely resembles the woman in white. She, however, is soon to marry the financially embarrassed Sir Percival Glyde. Events at Limmeridge take a surprising turn when Anne Catherick arrives, and Walter recognises her as the mystery figure. 
 
It appears that Anne’s recent incarceration in a mental asylum was at the behest of Sir Percival, who is all too aware of the secret she holds. More than one life will be lost before Walter’s mystery of the woman in white can be fully explained. 
 
A strong cast brings Wilkie Collins’ tale to life in this BBC Radio 4 production, recorded on location at Beacon Hill, London in 2001

The Penguin English Library Edition of The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins 
 
'In one moment, every drop of blood in my body was brought to a stop ... There, as if it had that moment sprung out of the earth ... stood the figure of a solitary Woman, dressed from head to foot in white' 
 
The Woman in White famously opens with Walter Hartright's eerie encounter on a moonlit London road. Engaged as a drawing master to the beautiful Laura Fairlie, Walter is drawn into the sinister intrigues of Sir Percival Glyde and his 'charming' friend Count Fosco, who has a taste for white mice, vanilla bonbons and poison. Pursuing questions of identity and insanity along the paths and corridors of English country houses and the madhouse, The Woman in White is the first and most influential of the Victorian genre that combined Gothic horror with psychological realism. 
 
The Penguin English Library - 100 editions of the best fiction in English, from the eighteenth century and the very first novels to the beginning of the First World War.

The Penguin English Library Edition of The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins 
 
'Here was our quiet English house suddenly invaded by a devilish Indian Diamond - bringing after it a conspiracy of living rogues, set loose on us by the vengeance of a dead man' 
 
When Rachel Verinder's birthday present - the Moonstone, a large Indian diamond - is stolen at her party, suspicion and the diamond's mysterious curse seem set to ruin everyone and everything she loves. Only Sergeant Cuff's famous detective skills offer any hope of peace and a future for them all. The intricate plot and modern technique of multiple narrators made Wilkie Collin's 1868 work a huge success in the Victorian sensation genre. With a reconstruction of the crime, red herrings and a 'locked-room' puzzle, The Moonstone was also a major precursor of the modern mystery novel. 
 
The Penguin English Library - 100 editions of the best fiction in English, from the eighteenth century and the very first novels to the beginning of the First World War.

Part of Penguin's beautiful hardback Clothbound Classics series, designed by the award-winning Coralie Bickford-Smith, these delectable and collectible editions are bound in high-quality colourful, tactile cloth with foil stamped into the design. 
 
The Woman in White famously opens with Walter Hartright's eerie encounter on a moonlit London road. Engaged as a drawing master to the beautiful Laura Fairlie, Walter is drawn into the sinister intrigues of Sir Percival Glyde and his 'charming' friend Count Fosco, who has a taste for white mice, vanilla bonbons and poison. Pursuing questions of identity and insanity along the paths and corridors of English country houses and the madhouse, The Woman in White is the first and most influential of the Victorian genre that combined Gothic horror with psychological realism.

The Woman in White famously opens with Walter Hartright's eerie encounter on a moonlit London road. Engaged as a drawing master to the beautiful Laura Fairlie, Walter is drawn into the sinister intrigues of Sir Percival Glyde and his 'charming' friend Count Fosco, who has a taste for white mice, vanilla bonbons and poison. Pursuing questions of identity and insanity along the paths and corridors of English country houses and the madhouse, The Woman in White is the first and most influential of the Victorian genre that combined Gothic horror with psychological realism.

A Mystery of Modern Venice

Horror lies waiting. 
 
A sinister Countess is driven mad by a dark secret. An innocent woman is made the instrument of retribution. A murdered man&rsquo;s fury reaches beyond the grave. 
 
When Countess Narona marries Agnes Lockwood&rsquo;s fianc&eacute; and takes him to live in a rundown Venetian palace, strange things start happening, a servant mysteriously vanishes and the husband dies a recluse. But the dead won&rsquo;t rest. When the palace is transformed into a hotel the two women are drawn to its chambers, where a force stronger than death is waiting to wreak its vengeance ...

The Law and the Lady

Introduces English Literature's first female detective

Despite the grave misgivings of both their families, Valeria Brinton and Eustace Woodville are married. But before long the new bride begins to suspect a dark secret in her husband's past and when she discovers that he has been living under a false name, she determines to find out why he is concealing his true identity from her. Soon she must endure an even greater shock: the revelation that her husband has been on trial for poisoning his first wife. Convinced of his innocence, Valeria is prepared to do anything to clear her husband's name, and in so doing upturns the conventions of polite nineteenth century society.

Collins' exhilarating story of two girls who fight for what should justly be theirs, in a typically labyrinthine plot

A witty, intricately-plotted exploration of a sudden fall from grace, the Penguin Classics edition of Wilkie Collins's No Name is edited with an introduction and notes by Mark Ford. 
 
Magdalen and her sister Norah, beloved daughters of Mr and Mrs Vanstone, find themselves the victims of a catastrophic oversight. Their father has neglected to change his will, and when the girls are suddenly orphaned, their inheritance goes to their uncle. Now penniless, the conventional Norah takes up a position as a governess, but the defiant and tempestuous Magdalen cannot accept the loss of what is rightfully hers and decides to do whatever she can to win it back. With the help of cunning Captain Wragge, she concocts a scheme that involves disguise, deceit and astonishing self-transformation. In this compelling, labyrinthine story Wilkie Collins brilliantly demonstrates the gap between justice and the law, and in the subversive Magdalen he portrays one of the most exhilarating heroines of Victorian fiction. 
 
In his introduction Mark Ford examines themes of identity and illegitimacy within Victorian society and compares No Name to Collins's more 'sensational' fiction. This edition also includes notes and a bibliography. 
 
Wilkie Collins (1824-1889) was born in London in 1824, the eldest son of the landscape painter William Collins. In 1846 he was entered to read for the bar at Lincoln's Inn, where he gained the knowledge that was to give him much of the material for his writing. From the early 1850s he was a friend of Charles Dickens, who produced and acted in two melodramas written by Collins, The Lighthouse and The Frozen Deep. Of his novels, Collins is best remembered for The Woman in White (1859), No Name (1862), Armadale (1866) and The Moonstone (1868). 
 
If you enjoyed No Name, you might like Anthony Trollope's Can You Forgive Her?, also available in Penguin Classics.

Magdalen and her sister Norah, beloved daughters of Mr and Mrs Vanstone, find themselves the victims of a catastrophic oversight. Their father has neglected to change his will, and when the girls are suddenly orphaned, their inheritance goes to their uncle. Now penniless, the conventional Norah takes up a position as a governess, but the defiant and tempestuous Magdalen cannot accept the loss of what is rightfully hers and decides to do whatever she can to win it back. With the help of cunning Captain Wragge, she concocts a scheme that involves disguise, deceit and astonishing self-transformation. In this compelling, labyrinthine story Wilkie Collins brilliantly demonstrates the gap between justice and the law, and in the subversive Magdalen he portrays one of the most exhilarating heroines of Victorian fiction.

Armadale

An innovative novel featuring an astonishingly wicked female villain, Wilkie Collins's Armadale was regarded by T.S. Eliot as 'the best of [his] romances'. This Penguin Classics edition is edited with an introduction and notes by John Sutherland. 
 
When the elderly Allan Armadale makes a terrible confession on his death-bed, he has little idea of the repercussions to come, for the secret he reveals involves the mysterious Lydia Gwilt: flame-haired temptress, bigamist, laudanum addict and husband-poisoner. Her malicious intrigues fuel the plot of this gripping melodrama: a tale of confused identities, inherited curses, romantic rivalries, espionage, money - and murder. The character of Lydia Gwilt horrified contemporary critics, with one reviewer describing her as 'One of the most hardened female villains whose devices and desires have ever blackened fiction'. She remains among the most enigmatic and fascinating women in nineteenth-century literature and the dark heart of this most sensational of Victorian 'sensation novels'. 
 
John Sutherland's introduction illustrated how Wilkie Collins drew on scandalous newspaper headlines and on new technology particularly the penny post and the telegraph - to lend extra pace and veracity to his tale. This edition also contains notes, further reading and an appendix on stage dramatisations of Armadale. 
 
Wilkie Collins (1824-1889) was born in London in 1824, the eldest son of the landscape painter William Collins. In 1846 he was entered to read for the bar at Lincoln's Inn, where he gained the knowledge that was to give him much of the material for his writing. From the early 1850s he was a friend of Charles Dickens, who produced and acted in two melodramas written by Collins, The Lighthouse and The Frozen Deep. Of his novels, Collins is best remembered for The Woman in White (1859), No Name (1862), Armadale (1866) and The Moonstone (1868). 
 
If you enjoyed Armadale, you might like Collins's No Name, also available in Penguin Classics.

When the elderly Allan Armadale makes a terrible confession on his death-bed, he has little idea of the repercussions to come, for the secret he reveals involves the mysterious Lydia Gwilt: flame-haired temptress, bigamist, laudanum addict and husband-poisoner. Her malicious intrigues fuel the plot of this gripping melodrama: a tale of confused identities, inherited curses, romantic rivalries, espionage, money - and murder. The character of Lydia Gwilt horrified contemporary critics, with one reviewer describing her as 'One of the most hardened female villains whose devices and desires have ever blackened fiction'. She remains among the most enigmatic and fascinating women in nineteenth-century literature and the dark heart of this most sensational of Victorian 'sensation novels'.

Penguin Classics

The Moonstone is one of the first true works of detective fiction, in which Wilkie Collins established the groundwork for the genre itself. This Penguin Classics edition is edited with an introduction by Sandra Kemp. 
 
The Moonstone, a priceless yellow diamond, is looted from an Indian temple and maliciously bequeathed to Rachel Verinder. On her eighteenth birthday, her friend and suitor Franklin Blake brings the gift to her. That very night, it is stolen again. No one is above suspicion, as the idiosyncratic Sergeant Cuff and the Franklin piece together a puzzling series of events as mystifying as an opium dream and as deceptive as the nearby Shivering Sand. The intricate plot and modern technique of multiple narrators made Wilkie Collins's 1868 work a huge success in the Victorian sensation genre. With a reconstruction of the crime, red herrings and a 'locked-room' puzzle, The Moonstone was also a major precursor of the modern mystery novel. 
 
In her introduction Sandra Kemp explores The Moonstone's the detective elements of Collins's writing, and reveals how Collins's sensibilities were untypical of his era. 
 
Wilkie Collins (1824-1889) was born in London in 1824, the eldest son of the landscape painter William Collins. In 1846 he was entered to read for the bar at Lincoln's Inn, where he gained the knowledge that was to give him much of the material for his writing. From the early 1850s he was a friend of Charles Dickens, who produced and acted in two melodramas written by Collins, The Lighthouse and The Frozen Deep. Of his novels, Collins is best remembered for The Woman in White (1859), No Name (1862), Armadale (1866) and The Moonstone (1868). 
 
If you enjoyed The Moonstone you might like Collins's The Woman in White, also available in Penguin Classics. 
 
'Probably the very finest detective story ever written' 
Dorothy L. Sayers 
 
'The first, the longest and the best of modern modern English detective novels' 
T.S. Eliot

The Moonstone, a priceless yellow diamond, is looted from an Indian temple and maliciously bequeathed to Rachel Verinder. On her eighteenth birthday, her friend and suitor Franklin Blake brings the gift to her. That very night, it is stolen again. No one is above suspicion, as the idiosyncratic Sergeant Cuff and the Franklin piece together a puzzling series of events as mystifying as an opium dream and as deceptive as the nearby Shivering Sand. T. S. Eliot famously described THE MOONSTONE as 'the first, the longest and the best of modern English detective novels', but, as Sandra Kemp discusses in her introduction, it offers many other facets, which reveal Collins's sensibilities as untypical of his era.

Charles Dickens

Wilkie Collins

Two literary giants take to the road on a comic journey - both chaotic, and completely unforgettable 
 
Tired of the grind of work, two apprentices set out on a walking tour with no fixed plan, determined to do as little as possible. As they drift from town to town, they encounter curious characters, regale strange stories and witness moments of quiet absurdity that disrupt their idleness. 
 
BRIEF ENCOUNTERS: classic novellas and captivating stories, to be read in a single sitting or savoured over days

The Lazy Tour of Two Idle Apprentices

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