Armadale: Wilkie Collins

[poliphilo]

I thought this was going to be a very silly book, but in the end it wasn't. It has melodrama, social comedy, a collection of striking and memorable characters and the most sympathetic murderess in Victorian fiction. Contemporaries found it immoral. You bet it is. Collins was a proto-feminist and hated middle-class morality.  His relish for criminal psychology is such that I kept wondering whether Dostoevsky had read him. 

Comments

[sovay]

Contemporaries found it immoral. You bet it is. Collins was a proto-feminist and hated middle-class morality.

Have never read any Wilkie Collins; am putting this on the list.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

It may not be his best book. The Woman in White- which I'm fixing to re-read could be a better place to start.

[sovay]

The Woman in White- which I'm fixing to re-read could be a better place to start.

Well, The Moonstone is the one that appears to be on the shelf, so that may be what I begin with.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

An excellent choice- the book that is sometimes described as the very first detective novel.