Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $9.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    Some novels – Volume 4
    Some novels – Volume 4
    Some novels – Volume 4
    Ebook72 pages1 hour

    Some novels – Volume 4

    By Wilkie Collins

    ()

    Read preview

    About this ebook

    William Wilkie Collins (8 January 1824 – 23 September 1889) was an English novelist and playwright known for The Woman in White (1859), and for The Moonstone (1868), which has been posited as the first modern English detective novel. Born to the London painter William Collins and his wife, he moved with the family to Italy when he was twelve, living there and in France for two years and learning Italian and French. He worked initially as a tea merchant. After publishing Antonina, his first novel, in 1850, Collins met Charles Dickens, who became a friend and mentor.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherGreenbooks Editore
    Release dateJun 15, 2021
    ISBN9791259718631
    Some novels – Volume 4
    Author

    Wilkie Collins

    Hijo del paisajista William Collins, nació en Londres en 1824. Fue aprendiz en una compañía de comercio de té, estudió Derecho, hizo sus pinitos como pintor y actor y, antes de conocer a Charles Dickens en 1851, había publicado ya una bio­grafía de su padre, Memoirs of the Life of William Collins, Esq., R. A. (1848), una novela histórica, Antonina (1850), y un libro de viajes, Rambles Beyond Railways (1851). Pero el encuentro con Dickens fue decisivo para la trayectoria literaria de ambos. Ba­sil (ALBA CLÁSICA núm. VI; Alba Minus núm. 10) inició en 1852 una serie de novelas «sensacionales», llenas de misterio y violencia pero siempre dentro de un entorno de cla­se media, que, con su técnica brillante y su compleja estruc­tu­ra, obtu­vie­ron enseguida una gran repercusión: La mujer de blanco (1860), Arma­da­le (1862; ALBA CLÁSICA MAIOR núm. LXXXIV) o La Piedra Lunar (1868; ALBA CLÁSICA MAIOR núm. L), que sentó las bases del moderno relato detectivesco, fueron tan aplaudidas como imitadas. En Sin nombre (1862; ALBA CLÁSICA MAIOR núm. XI; Alba Minus núm. 19) y Marido y mujer (1870; ALBA CLÁSICA MAIOR núm. XVI; Alba Minus núm. 6), las heroínas son mujeres dramáticamente condicionadas por una arbitraria situación legal. Otras novelas suyas son La pobre señorita Finch (1871-1872; ALBA CLÁSICA núm. XXVI; Alba Minus núm. 6) y La hija de Jezabel (1880; ALBA CLÁSICA núm. CXL). Collins murió en Londres en 1889, sin haberse casado nunca pero cabeza de dos familias distintas y rigurosamente secretas.

    Read more from Wilkie Collins

    Related to Some novels – Volume 4

    Related ebooks

    Classics For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      Life In The past Lane

      Aug 27, 2021

      Life In The past Lane
      5 min read

    • Article

      Mrs Macarthur’s Secret Diary

      Jun 17, 2020

      Mrs Macarthur’s Secret Diary
      7 min read

    • Article

      Mrs Macarthur’s Secret Diary

      Jun 17, 2020

      Mrs Macarthur’s Secret Diary
      7 min read

    • Article

      The Leather Coat

      Apr 4, 2024

      The Leather Coat
      6 min read

    • Article

      Not That Story

      Oct 28, 2017

      Not That Story
      7 min read

    • Article

      Ghost Girl, Banana

      Aug 21, 2023

      By the time I was 25, there were only two things I remembered about Mumma. The first was that she smelled of watermelons, the second was that we were happy. We’d taken our father’s name of course, but a name is only half a story. The other half exist

      6 min read

    • Article

      A Hard Man To Forget

      Jan 8, 2024

      A Hard Man To Forget
      4 min read

    • Article

      My #MeToo

      Jul 17, 2020

      My #MeToo
      6 min read

    • Article

      The Woman At Home

      Jan 29, 2019

      From the journals of Samuel P. Perceval,bookseller: Covent Garden, Dec. 15, 1974 This spring, I found a curious letter sewn into the hem of a coat belonging to my late great-aunt Florence. Crudely enveloped in what appeared to be a page torn from

      5 min read

    • Article

      Sweet Sorrow

      Aug 19, 2019

      Sweet Sorrow
      8 min read

    • Article

      Pozdnyshev’s Address

      Jun 8, 2021

      THE MURDER I COMMITTED—it wasn’t simply the strike of a dagger, at night, on the fifth of October, in a brightly lit living room. The murder I committed is a phenomenon of duration, akin more to slow poisoning than a flashing blade. I dare to hope th

      9 min read

    • Article

      Haunted

      Sep 27, 2023

      Haunted
      6 min read

    • Article

      Sigrid Nunez

      Sep 15, 2017

      During the 1980s, in California, a large number of Cambodian women went to their doctors with the same complaint: they could not see. The women were all war refugees. Before fleeing their homeland, they had witnessed the atrocities for which the Khme

      23 min read

    • Article

      The Convict

      Jul 10, 2020

      The Convict
      5 min read

    • Article

      On Proust, Judd Nelson, and Some Other Things

      Oct 24, 2024

      On the afternoon of 18 March 2018 my family and I visited Book Soup in West Hollywood, California. We had arrived in town earlier that day, having driven down from the Bay Area, and walked to the bookshop from our hotel. My wife and daughter, who was

      13 min read

    • Article

      Righteous

      Jan 22, 2019

      Righteous
      8 min read

    • Article

      Uncontrollable, Irrelevant

      Dec 6, 2022

      My sister called me the other day. She wanted to let me know that I had once more been merciless and cruel in my relations with our parents. “They say there’s a lot of anger in you,” she said. “It makes them mad. It hurts their feelings. They think y

      14 min read

    • Article

      The Oyster Diaries

      Jun 18, 2024

      I know a certain amount about sports, mainly baseball. Last night the Rangers won the pennant, for example, and I know what the pennant is. The thing my husband finds truly poetic is sports. He’s always trying to talk to me about it and explain. “Wat

      23 min read

    • Article

      ‘Lady in the Lake’: Featured Fiction from Laura Lippman

      Jul 23, 2019

      An excerpt from Lippman's latest, a sophisticated crime novel that captures the 1960s zeitgeist while painting a striking portrait of female ambition. The post ‘Lady in the Lake’: Featured Fiction from Laura Lippman appeared first on The Millions.

      5 min read

    • Article

      Night At The Freud Museum

      May 29, 2024

      A night at the Freud Museum! The idea appeals. The post Night at the Freud Museum appeared first on The Millions.

      13 min read

    • Article

      Excerpts From The Works Of The 2024 Whiting Award Winners

      Apr 10, 2024

      The 2024 Whiting Award winners were announced Wednesday night. Below are excerpts from their work.

      19 min read

    • Article

      Strangers In Love

      Mar 7, 2022

      Strangers In Love
      4 min read

    • Article

      I Met Myself Coming Back

      Oct 6, 2022

      I Met Myself Coming Back
      6 min read

    • Article

      La Bohème

      Mar 1, 2022

      ON A SATURDAY or Sunday afternoon in the cold early months of 1988, I sat alone at a table for two in a Greenwich Village diner, twenty-four years old, hopelessly young, my notebook open in front of me. At the table next to mine were three people, al

      13 min read

    • Article

      Four Poems

      Mar 1, 2024

      I was trying to look a little less like myselfand more like other humans, humans who belonged, so I put on a skort.Purchased in another life, when I had a husband and wrote thank-you notes and held dinner parties,the skort even had its own little poc

      6 min read

    • Article

      Once BITTEN

      Jun 28, 2022

      Once BITTEN
      14 min read

    • Article

      Mature Adults In Your Area

      Aug 8, 2022

      I would say that I don’t normally do this kind of thing, except that on and off over the months and years, I’ve done “these kinds of things” too many times for that to be true. So yeah, I go on dates from time to time. This recent guy wouldn’t choose

      6 min read

    • Article

      A tough LESSON

      Nov 22, 2023

      “Once a year, at about this time, Mr Dear attends an unofficial school reunion. Unofficial in this case means that they meet in a pub restaurant and get slightly drunk. About five years ago, there was a special dinner in honour of a history teacher c

      3 min read

    Related categories

    Reviews for Some novels – Volume 4

    0 ratings

    0 ratings0 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

      Book preview

      Some novels – Volume 4 - Wilkie Collins

      GROOM

      MISS JEROMETTE AND THE CLERGYMAN

      I.

      MY brother, the clergyman, looked over my shoulder before I was aware of him, and discovered that the volume which completely absorbed my attention was a collection of famous Trials, published in a new edition and in a popular form.

      He laid his finger on the Trial which I happened to be reading at the moment. I looked up at him; his face startled me. He had turned pale. His eyes were fixed on the open page of the book with an expression which puzzled and alarmed me.

      My dear fellow, I said, what in the world is the matter with you?

      He answered in an odd absent manner, still keeping his finger on the open page.

      I had almost forgotten, he said. And this reminds me.

      Reminds you of what? I asked. You don't mean to say you know anything about the Trial?

      I know this, he said. The prisoner was guilty.

      Guilty? I repeated. Why, the man was acquitted by the jury, with the full approval of the judge! What call you possibly mean?

      There are circumstances connected with that Trial, my brother answered, which were never communicated to the judge or the jury--which were never so much as hinted or whispered in court. I know them--of my own knowledge, by my own personal experience. They are very sad, very strange, very terrible. I have mentioned them to no mortal creature. I have done my best to forget them. You--quite innocently--have brought them back to my mind. They oppress, they distress me. I wish I had found you reading any book in your library, except that book!

      My curiosity was now strongly excited. I spoke out plainly.

      Surely, I suggested, you might tell your brother what you are unwilling to mention to persons less nearly related to you. We have followed different professions, and have lived in different countries, since we were boys at school. But you know you can trust me.

      He considered a little with himself.

      Yes, he said. I know I can trust you. He waited a moment, and then he surprised me by a strange question.

      Do you believe, he asked, that the spirits of the dead can return to earth, and show themselves to the living?

      I answered cautiously--adopting as my own the words of a great English writer, touching the subject of ghosts.

      You ask me a question, I said, which, after five thousand years, is yet undecided. On that account alone, it is a question not to be trifled with.

      My reply seemed to satisfy him.

      Promise me, he resumed, that you will keep what I tell you a secret as long as I live. After my death I care little what happens. Let the story of my strange experience be added to the published experience of those other men who have seen what I have seen, and who believe what I believe. The world will not be the worse, and may be the better, for knowing one day what I am now about to trust to your ear alone.

      My brother never again alluded to the narrative which he had confided to me, until the later time when I was sitting by his deathbed. He asked if I still remembered the story of Jeromette. Tell it to others, he said, as I have told it to you.

      I repeat it after his death--as nearly as I can in his own words.

      II.

      ON a fine summer evening, many years since, I left my chambers in the Temple, to meet a fellow-student, who had proposed to me a night's amusement in the public gardens at Cremorne.

      You were then on your way to India; and I had taken my degree at Oxford. I had sadly disappointed my father by choosing the Law as my profession, in preference to the Church. At that time, to own the truth, I had no serious intention of following any special vocation. I simply wanted an excuse for enjoying the pleasures of a London life. The study of the Law supplied me with that excuse. And I chose the Law as my profession accordingly.

      On reaching the place at which we had arranged to meet, I found that my friend had not kept his appointment. After waiting vainly for ten minutes, my patience gave way and I went into the Gardens by myself.

      I took two or three turns round the platform devoted to the dancers without discovering my fellow-student, and without seeing any other person with whom I happened to be acquainted at that time.

      For some reason which I cannot now remember, I was not in my usual good spirits that evening. The noisy music jarred on my nerves, the sight of the gaping crowd round the platform irritated me, the blandishments of the painted ladies of the profession of pleasure saddened and disgusted me. I opened my cigar-case, and turned aside into one of the quiet by-walks of the Gardens.

      A man who is habitually careful in choosing his cigar has this advantage over a man who is habitually careless. He can always count on smoking the best cigar in his case, down to the last. I was still absorbed in choosing my cigar, when I heard these words behind me--spoken in a foreign accent and in a woman's voice:

      Leave me directly, sir! I wish to have nothing to say to you.

      I turned round and discovered a little lady very simply and tastefully dressed, who looked both angry and alarmed as she rapidly passed me on her way to the more frequented part of the Gardens. A man (evidently the worse for the wine he had drunk in the course of the evening) was following her, and was pressing his tipsy attentions on her with the coarsest insolence

      of speech and manner. She was young and pretty, and she cast one entreating look at me as she went by, which it was not in manhood--perhaps I ought to say, in young-manhood--to resist.

      I instantly stepped forward to protect her, careless whether I involved myself in a discreditable quarrel with a blackguard or not. As a matter of course, the fellow resented my interference, and my temper gave way. Fortunately for

      Enjoying the preview?
      Page 1 of 1