A Terribly Strange Bed: A man in Paris wins big gambling, but has his luck run out....

Wilkie Collins was born on 8th January 1824 in Marylebone, London.

The family moved several times in his early years before, at 12, they travelled to France and Italy for 2 years where the sights and atmosphere made a deep and lasting impression on him.

He resumed his education at Mr Cole's private boarding school in Highbury, Islington. Here, he began his literary career under unusual circumstances: the school bully would give him no peace until he had been told a bedtime story. This `littl...