Miss or Mrs?

Wilkie Collins's novella Miss or Mrs? (1871) occupies a distinct position within his literary production of the 1870s, often categorized among his "Christmas stories" but in fact more deeply engaged with questions of social and legal identity than with festive sentimentality. The narrative unfolds around the figure of Natalie Graybrooke, a young woman of mixed English and Creole heritage, whose clandestine marriage to Launcelot Linzie—a professional engineer of modest standing—sets in motio...