My Miscellanies

by Wilkie Collins, Margaret Lessing (Editor)

Overview

Wilkie Collins's My Miscellanies (1863) is a wide-ranging collection that brings together a series of essays, short stories, and reflections originally published in Victorian periodicals. Unlike his major sensation novels, this miscellany reveals Collins's multifaceted talents as a journalist, social commentator, and storyteller, offering readers a glimpse into both his literary experiments and his critical engagement with contemporary issues.
The volume includes light satirical pieces such as "A Petition to the Novel-Writers," which humorously critiques popular literary conventions, as well as narrative sketches like "Mrs. Badgery" and "Fauntleroy," in which Collins demonstrates his keen eye for character and anecdote. It also contains detective-style tales such as "The Lawyer's Story of a Stolen Letter," which anticipate his later development of mystery fiction in The Moonstone. Interspersed throughout are Collins's observations on travel, society, and the law, reflecting his curiosity about human behavior and his sensitivity to the social transformations of mid-nineteenth-century England.
What makes My Miscellanies significant is not only the diversity of its contents but also the way it sheds light on Collins's broader literary career. It illustrates the experimental ground from which his later masterpieces emerged, while at the same time capturing the vitality of Victorian print culture, where novels, journalism, and short fiction often overlapped. For modern readers, the collection offers both entertainment and historical insight, enriching the understanding of one of the most influential figures of the Victorian literary scene.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9798319690944
Publisher:	Barnes & Noble Press
Publication date:	09/11/2025
Pages:	440
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.98(d)

About the Author

Wilkie COLLINS (1824-1889), elder son of the landscape painter William Collins. He was educated at private schools in London, but gained his real education on a two-year tour of Italy with his family (1836-38). He worked briefly for a tea importer and was later called to the bar, but never practised. His first book, a biography of his father, was published in 1848, and he later wrote numerous articles and short stories for Dickens´s periodicals “Household Words” and “All the Year Round” and for other journals, a book about a walking tour in Cornwall, and many moderately successful plays; but his reputation rests on his novels. His first was “Antonina” (1850), a historical novel about the fall of Rome; but with “Basil” (1852) he found his true metier as an expert in mystery, suspense, and crime. His finest work, the Novel of Sensation, was written in the 1860s, when he produced “The Woman in White” (1860), “No Name” (1862), “Armadale” (1866), and “The Moonstone” (1868). Collins wrote the first full-length detective stories in English, and set a mould for the genre which has lasted for a century. He excelled at constructing ingenious and meticulous plots, and made interesting experiments in narrative technique.

Date of Birth:

December 8, 1824

Date of Death:

September 23, 1889

Place of Birth:

London, England

Place of Death:

London, England

Education:

Studied law at Lincoln¿s Inn, London