"Always read something that will make you look good if you die in the middle of it."
— P.J. O'Rourke
Wilkie Collins | First Editions
1824 - 1889
William Wilkie Collins (8 January 1824 - 23 September 1889) was an English novelist, playwright, author of short stories and general man of letters. He was enormously popular during the Victorian era, rivalling the likes of Dickens (with whom he was both friend and colleague), in popularity.
He wrote 30 novels, 60-odd short stories, 14 plays, and around 100 pieces of non-fiction work.
Collins is arguably best known for "The Woman in White", "The Moonstone", and "Armadale", although his popular output far exceeded those three works.
He is also credited unofficially with creating the "sensational" novel ("Basil" of 1852 is a particularly good example, being that tragic and overwrought must be exhausting) and with refining if not outright inventing the modern detective story (in the words of another distinguished bookseller Collins's "The Moonstone." is the: "fons et origio of many genre memes", no more absinthe for that man).
See below our stock of Wilkie Collins First Editions and fine bindings.
Results 1 - 3 (of 3)
After Dark.
London: The Gresham Publishing Co., n.d. [c.1900]. [Classic Literature]. FIRST THUS. Octavo (21 x 14cm), pp.xxiv; 355 [1]. With six wood engraved plates by Browne, including a frontispiece. Publisher's blue cloth with gilt titles to spine and upper board, along with distinctive white and green decoration. Grey endpapers. Black ink... More about After Dark
The Moonstone.
New York, NY: Harper and Brothers, 1868. [Literature] FIRST U.S. EDITION, being the FIRST ILLUSTRATED EDITION, also first single volume edition. Published the same year as the UK triple-decker. Slim octavo (24 x 16cm), pp.223; [1] blank. Publisher's blind-stamped textured brown cloth (not ribbed, as some copies), with decorative gilt... More about The Moonstone
The Works of Wilkie Collins. Including The Woman in White, The Moonstone, After Dark, The Evil Genius, The Dead Secret, etc.
New York: Peter Fenelon Collier, n.d. (circa 1900). Complete in 30 volumes. Octavo. With frontispiece illustrations and many other full-page plates. Handsomely bound in brown half calf, gilt titles and decoration to spines, matching buckram boards, all edge speckled. Internally clean. A most attractive set in an elegant recent leather binding. More about The Works of Wilkie Collins. Including The Woman in White, The Moonstone, After Dark, The Evil...
Results 1 - 3 (of 3)