Abstract
The novels of Wilkie Collins occupy a marginal space in the history of English letters. Some critical attention has been paid to The Moonstone and The Woman in White but even this appropriation is not given the academy’s full seal of approval. Rather The Moonstone is seen to be the first detective novel and The Woman in White is identified as one of the better examples of the sensational genre, a popular literary form which flourished for a brief while in the 1860s. Collins has been widely identified as a writer of ‘middle-brow’ fiction and condemned by inconsequent praise; as a result, his large and varied fictional output has been allowed to slip into oblivion.
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© 1988 Philip O’Neill
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O’Neill, P. (1988). Introduction. In: Wilkie Collins: Women, Property and Propriety. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-08900-0_1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-08900-0_1
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, London
Print ISBN: 978-1-349-08902-4
Online ISBN: 978-1-349-08900-0
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