Wilkie Collins

Part of cover torn from attempt tonremove sticker. See photo.

Light Paperback (1 lb or less)

Wisconsin

'the first and greatest of English detective novels'T.S.EliotA fabulous yellow diamond becomes the dangerous inheritance of Rachel Verinder. Outside her Yorkshire country house watch the Hindu priests who have waited for many years to reclaim their ancient talisman, looted from the holy city of Somnauth. When the Moonstone disappears the case looks simple,but in mid-Victorian England no one is what they seem, and nothing can be taken for granted.Witnesses, suspects, and detectives take up the story in turn. The bemused butler, the love-stricken housemaid, the enigmatic detective Sergeant Cuff, the drug-addicted scientist, each speculate on the mystery as Collins weaves their narratives into a masterpiece of construction and suspense. ButThe Moonstone is more than just a detective novel or a murder mystery and this new edition features a fascinating introduction by John Sutherland which discusses the themes of Imperialism, Sensationalism and Mesmerism and the way in which they operate in the novel and within its culturalcontext.

The Moonstone

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Short story collection of the noted19th century author.

Paperback (1 to 2 lbs)

Pennsylvania

A collection of 14 short stories. Stories about ghosts, mysteries and tales of humor and love.

Little Novels

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Arkansas

"The Dead Secret" centers around a socially and morally questionable event, from which all incidents derive, and towards which all characters inevitably move. The secret, identified with the Cornish mansion Porthgenna, has all but ruined the life of the young servant girl Sarah Leeson; 15 years later it comes back to confuse and haunt Rosamond, the heir to Porthgenna. Collins's talent for eccentric characters is given full scope in the misanthropic hermit Andrew Treverton, his bullying servant Schrowl, and the actress whose powerful will lies behind the secret. "The Dead Secret" is a relentless quest to uncover a forgotten crime; the heir's detective work must finally lead to a disastrous revelation.

The Dead Secret

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Kentucky

In the story a young and genial tutor of arts, Walter Hartright, encounters a woman dressed head to toe in white who is lost in the streets of London. After reporting her to the authorities Walter is informed that the lady was an escapee from a mental asylum. However, when Walter takes a new position in teaching art he encounters a girl named Laura, whose looks are stunningly similar to those of the woman in white. As the pair fall for one another, the sense of mystery deepens - is there more to their meeting than first meets the eye?

The Woman in White

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Trevor Nunn

Utah

The Woman In White--now a dazzling new musical by the incomparable Andrew Lloyd WebberWilkie Collins's sensational tale of madness, betrayal, and greed, The Woman in White, is thrilling its West End audiences at the magnificent Palace Theatre in London'and is coming to Broadway in the future. Since its original publication in 1860, the novel has never been out of print, and this suspenseful classic is now brought to life by a brilliant international ensemble, including the sublime Maria Friedman and Michael Crawford as the diabolical Count Fosco.

Heavy Paperback (2 to 4 lbs)

The Woman in White famously opens with Walter Hartright's eerie encounter on a moonlit London road. Engaged as a drawing master to the beautiful Laura Fairlie, Walter is drawn into the sinister intrigues of Sir Percival Glyde and his "charming" friend Count Fosco, who has a taste for white mice, vanilla bonbons and poison. Pursuing questions of identity and insanity along the paths and corridors of English country houses and the madhouse, The Woman in White is the first and most influential of the Victorian genre that combined Gothic horror with psychological realism. For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.

Previously owned.  Edge, cover and corner wear 

North Carolina

The legendary Moonstone diamond is presented to Rachel Verinder on her eighteenth birthday. Looted by Rachel's uncle from an Indian temple, it is said to carry a curse. Staked out in the grounds surrounding Rachel's country house, a band of Hindu Brahmins watch and wait for an opportunity to restore the Moonstone to its rightful place.

When the gem disappears overnight, suspicion falls upon the Brahmins, but then Inspector Cuff of Scotland Yard arrives and begins to unwrap a mystery as fascinating as it is complex.
T.S. Eliot declared The Moonstone (1868) 'the first and greatest of English detective novels'.

Tennessee

The author of The Moonstone and The Woman in White applies his acclaimed narrative powers to this thrilling tale of mysterious women and blood-drenched conspiracies. Set amid the picturesque palaces and waterways of 19th-century Venice, Collins's suspenseful novelette recounts an obsessed countess's attempts to thwart what she perceives as her fatal destiny.

The Haunted Hotel

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South Dakota

Ohio

A beautiful diamond - with a terrible curseWhen Rachel Verinder is given the Moonstone - a large Indian diamond - on her eighteenth birthday, she is delighted to show it off at her celebrations. But that very night, the jewel is stolen from her bedroom. As suspicion falls on each member of the party, the curse of the diamond strikes - and ill-luck threatens to destroy them all.Will the noted detective Sergeant Cuff be able to solve the mystery? Or will the strange case of hypnotism, opium and Indian jugglers defeat even his brilliant mind?

California

The first and greatest of the bestselling Victorian thrillers known as 'sensation novels', The Woman in White opens with a chilling encounter between drawing teacher Walter Hartright and a ghostly female figure on a moonlit road. From this moment Walter is drawn into a terrifying world of intrigue, crime, disguise and insanity, as he tries to save his beautiful pupil Laura from the sinister plans of Sir Percival Glyde and the 'Napoleon of Crime', Count Fosco, in one of the most gripping plots in English fiction.

Penguin English Library the Woman in White

Texas

A Suspense Novel

The Woman in White 

Alabama

Connecticut

"When you looked down into the stone, you looked into a yellow deep that drew your eyes into it so that they saw nothing else." The Moonstone, a yellow diamond looted from an Indian temple and believed to bring bad luck to its owner, is bequeathed to Rachel Verinder on her eighteenth birthday. That very night the priceless stone is stolen again and when Sergeant Cuff is brought in to investigate the crime, he soon realizes that no one in Rachel’s household is above suspicion. Hailed by T. S. Eliot as "the first, the longest, and the best of modern English detective novels," The Moonstone is a marvellously taut and intricate tale of mystery, in which facts and memory can prove treacherous and not everyone is as they first appear. Sandra Kemp’s introduction examines The Moonstone as a work of Victorian sensation fiction and an early example of the detective genre, and discusses the technique of multiple narrators, the role of opium, and Collins’s sources and autobiographical references.

Nebraska

Penguin English Library version 

the Woman in White

Indiana

Secrets, mistaken identities, surprise revelations, amnesia, locked rooms and locked asylums, and an unorthodox villain made this mystery thriller an instant success when it first appeared in 1860, and it has continued to enthrall readers ever since.

Virginia

New York

Stolen from the forehead of a Hindu idol, the dazzling gem known as "The Moonstone" resurfaces at a birthday party in an English country home -- with an enigmatic trio of watchful Brahmins hot on its trail. Laced with superstitions, suspicion, humor, and romance, this 1868 mystery draws readers into a compelling tale with numerous twists and turns.

Camille Cauti

Book in excellent condition.  A classic gothic British mystery thriller.

Joy Connolly

Book in excellent condition.  A classic British mystery.

Please note yellow and spine crack due to age. 

Wilkie Collins's intriguing story about a blind girl, Lucilla Finch, and the identical twins who both fall in love with her, has the exciting complications of his better-known novels, but it also overturns conventional expectations. Using a background of myth and fairy-tale to expand the boundaries of nineteenth-century realist fiction, Collins not only takes a blind person as his central character but also explores the idea of blindness and its implications. His sensitive presentation of the difficulties, disappointments, and occasional delights which follow the recovery of sight by someone blind since infancy is still one of the best accounts in fiction of a problem which continues to intrigue philosophers, psychologists, and the general public, as it has done since it was first discussed by Locke and Berkeley in the eighteenth century.

Poor Miss Finch

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Oklahoma

"BASIL was the second work of fiction which I produced. On its appearance, it was condemned off-hand by a certain class of readers, as an outrage on their sense of propriety. . . ." -- Wilkie Collins

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