The Haunted Hotel & Other Stories - Wilkie Collins

No Name - Wilkie Collins

I love Wilkie Collins. I do, I so do. I fell in love with him when I read “The Moonstone” (still one of my favourites) and our relationship was strengthened with “The Woman In White”. Beautifully written, with cleverly constructed plots and a suspense I have rarely found elsewhere, Collins knows how to charm his readers, especially when one of those readers is me. However, “No Name” begins rather tediously. Mr and Mrs Vanstone and their two daughters, Norah and Magdalen, live a happy, ordinary life at their country home, Combe-Raven. Mr. Vanstone is an “easy, hearty, handsome, good-humoured gentleman, who walked on the sunny ...

The Moonstone - Wilkie Collins

I certainly would not have thought that this was a classic by any accounts. This Victorian Era detective novel is a fun read and it definitely encapsulates the attitudes and social customs of that time. I certainly didn’t become enthralled by the book and it was more to do with the fact thtat I was on holiday’s at the time ...

The Moonstone - Wilkie Collins

used this method in ‘The Woman in White’). The mystery is only unravelled at the end, and the originality and imagination of the author is absolutely outstanding. Wilkie Collins was, apparently, a good friend of Charles Dickens and they collaborated on several stories together, so if you like Dickens, you’ll love Collins. Personally, although I love his work, I sometimes find Dickens’s descriptive passages a little too heavy and long-winded for my liking. In contrast, The Moonstone just flows throughout and is a real pleasure to read. I cannot recommend this book highly enough. Some people are put off by classics as they consider them ...