The Letters of Wilkie Collins: Volume 2 1866–1889

356 Pages·1999·18.41 MB·English

by  William Baker, William M. Clarke (eds.)

THE LETTERS OF WILKIE COLLINS
Wilkie Collins photographed for Men of Mark (© Andrew Gasson, source APG)
The Letters of
Wilkie Collins
Volume 2
1866-1889
Edited by
William Baker
and
William M. Clarke
First published in Great Britain 1999 by
MACMILLAN PRESS LTD
Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS and London
Companies and representatives throughout the world
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN 978-0-333-67466-6Volume 1: 1838-1865
ISBN 978-1-349-40705-7 ISBN 978-0-230-37235-1 (eBook)
DOI 10.1057/9780230372351
ISBN 978-0-333-73247-2 two-volume set
First published in the United States of America 1999 by
ST. MARTIN'S PRESS, INC.,
Scholarly and Reference Division,
175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010
ISBN 978-0-312-22343-4 Volume 1: 1838-1865
ISBN 978-0-312-22344-1Volume 2: 1866-1889
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Collins, Wilkie, 1824-1889.
[Correspondence. Selections]
The letters of Wilkie Collins I edited by William Baker and
William M. Clarke.
p. em.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Contents: v. 1. 1838-1865-v. 2. 1866-1889.
ISBN 978-0-312-22343-4 (v. 1).C IP ISBN 978-0-312-22344-1 (v. 2)
1. Collins, Wilkie, 1824-1889-Correspondence. 2. Novelists,
English-19th century-Correspondence. I. Baker, William, 1944-
II. Clarke, William M. (William Malpas) III. Title.
PR4496.A4 1999
823'.8-dc21 99-19642
CIP
Selection and editorial matter© William Baker and William M. Clarke 1999
Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 1999 978-0-333-73246-5
All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication may be made
without written permission.
No paragraph of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted save with
written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and
Patents Act 1988, or under the terms of any licence permitting limited copying issued by
the Copyright Licensing Agency, 90 Tottenham Court Road, London W1P OLP.
Any person who does any unauthmised act in relation to this publication may be liable to
criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.
The authors have asserted their rights to be identified as the authors of this work in
accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
This book is printed on paper suitable for recycling and made from fully managed and
sustained forest sources.
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 I
08 07 06 05 04 03 02 01 00 99
For our wives
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Contents
List of Illustrations
Vlll
Preface ix
PartY The Moonstone to the Death of his Mother, 1866-1868 269
Part VI Martha and the American Triumph, 1869-February 1874 315
Part VII Domesticity, March 1874-1879 377
Part VIII Illness, Work and Family, 1880-1885 425
Part IX Letters to 'Nannie', 1885-1888 491
Part X Declining Years, 1886-1889 515
Index 597
vii
List of Illustrations
Volume 1
Plates 1 and 2 William and Harriet Collins, Wilkie's parents, by John
Linnell. (Faith Clarke)
Plate 3 Charles and Wilkie as children by Alexander Geddes. (Horace Pym
Collection)
Plate 4 Wilkie as a baby by William Collins. (Faith Clarke)
Plate 5 Charles Collins, Wilkie's brother and son-in-law to Charles
Dickens.
Plate 6 Charles Collins with Dickens and other members of the family at
Gad's Hill.
Plate 7 Wilkie Collins by Herbert Watkins in 1864.
Plate 8 Caroline Graves in the 1870s. (From The Secret Life of Wilkie Collins
by William Clarke)
Volume 2
Plate 9 Martha Rudd.
Plate 10 Wilkie Collins with Martha Rudd. (Faith Clarke)
Plate 11 The cover of The Bookman, June 1912.
Plate 12 A Christmas card featuring titles by Wilkie Collins, actual size.
Plate 13 F.W. Waddy's caricature of Collins, 1872.
Plate 14 "I am dying old friend." Plate 15 "I am too muddled to write.
They are driving me mad by forbidding the [Hypodermic] Come for God's
sake." The last letters Wilkie Collins wrote to his doctor. (Princeton
University Library)
viii
Preface
As was indicated in Volume 1, this two-volume edition of the letters of
Wilkie Collins will shed light on the life and activities of one of the few
remaining major Victorian creative personalities whose letters and papers
remain uncollected and unpublished. Although Collins has been the subject
of recent biographies, these works only quote brief extracts from the limited
correspondence already available to biographers.
Now that permission has been given to examine and publish the whole
correspondence - one of the editors, William Clarke, is the husband of
Collins' great-granddaughter and author of a revealing biography of
Collins The Secret Life of Wilkie Collins (1988, 1996)-this two-volume edition
will illuminate an extraordinarily rich and varied Victorian life. It will shed
light on Victorian literature and publishing, music, art and many other areas
of intellectual, cultural and artistic endeavour.
As explained in Volume 1, there are two main sources for Collins letters:
those which survive in institutional holdings or in private hands; and those
which have disappeared but survive in printed form. In Letters of Charles
Dickens to Wilkie Collins, published by Harper Brothers in New York in
1892, Laurence Hutton collected the letters Dickens sent to his close friend
Collins. In his preface to Wilkie Collins (1952) Robert Ashley wrote of "the
huge bonfire at Gad's Hill to which, irritated at the invasion of his privacy
by the press, Dickens consigned the whole of his correspondence".
Consequently, he concluded, "although we have many of the letters
Dickens wrote to Collins, we have none of those which Collins wrote to
Dickens". Ashley also noted that "another loss was occasioned when
Collins himself burnt the greater part of his correspondence before moving
from Gloucester Place to Wimpole Street in the closing years of his life".
Two recent biographies have drawn upon some of the many extant letters
throughout the world in university libraries and private collections. William
Clarke's intention in his biography is to unravel the secrets of Collins'
complicated private life. Clarke's pioneering research revealed the identity
of Collins' copyright holder and identified 18 institutions whose libraries
held Collins' letters and the names of some private holders. Catherine
Peters in her The King of Inventors: A Life of Wilkie Collins (1991), building
upon Clarke's foundation, interweaves Collins' complicated life with her
subject's literary achievements. Clarke's biography prompted Sir John
ix