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Wilkie Collins (WHEN Wilkie Collins met)

WHEN Wilkie Collins met Charles Dickens, his future was shortly decided. The lives of the two were intimately connected thereafter. Dickens was conducting "Household Words," and for it Collins contributed, as he did for "All the Year Round," also in charge of Dickens, a large number of tales. The close friendship and co-operation of Dickens not only found the direction for Collins to follow, but it seemed to lead him to the type of story on which rests his fame, that in which the skilful unwinding of an intricate and exciting plot, and the construction of a thoroughly involved mystery, baffle the reader in a maze of details and circumstances. He might lack humor, fail to appreciate the finer shades of character, but he certainly conceived some striking personalities; for his own type of story he was unsurpassed by any of his contemporaries. "The Woman in White" (1860) was his great success; "The Moonstone" (1868) was a close second in the opinion of a large and devoted following of readers.