Wilkie Collins (1824‐1889) was a major Victorian novelist who effectively mastered the novel of mystery, and even terror, in a subtle and engaging way, famous for The Women in White (1860) and The Moonstone (1868). He was widely regarded by literary critics of the twentieth century, such as T.S. Eliot, as an essential master of the English detective novel, and certainly, he was a superb craftsman, with a unique ability to create and sustain an elaborate and well‐defined mystery plot.
The book here under review is a significant and thorough study of his library that was dispersed after his death: illustrating in meticulous detail how his personal reading contributed to the making of his published works. The result is a fresh and highly illuminating discernment of Collins, in his own Victorian setting, alike as a man and as an author. It is altogether a very attractive and reliable assessment of the role of books, in the life and work of an eminent Victorian writer: almost as much that of a library as a place of “rest and repose”, as also of books as fundamental sources of information and knowledge. Essentially, therefore, this story of Collins and his library supplies the psychological background for his personal life, as well as his life as a professional writer, an intellectual and even a person who somehow needed books to live. “Wilkie Collins wrote for a living, but he also needed books (as) a basic resource for his creativity”.
William Baker is a distinguished scholar, Professor of English at Northern Illinois University, with a string of scholarly publications already to his credit, including The Letters of Wilkie Collins (1999). For the year 2003 it is expected he will yield more noteworthy publications regarding Collins and his writings of which the present volume is merely a foretaste.
The sale of the important library of Wilkie Collins, which occurred in London early in 1890, attracted a lot of distinguished booksellers, including Bernard Quaritch the “Napoleon of the London dealers”. Three lots were purchased by the St Martins Public Library, subsequently absorbed into Westminster City Libraries. On the whole – and despite the excellence of the available contents – prices paid were comparatively low, suggesting perhaps that the London dealers may have arranged some sort of price rigging.
The library of Collins certainly was outstanding, even for those Victorian times, including as it did a vast range of English, American and French literature, with many books about history, biography, travel and religion. Politics, significantly, figured fairly low. Collins may still emerge out of the literary diversity as an ardent Victorian book man, who frequented Paris as well as London for his wares, yet he never allowed his book collecting to get on top of him: he was never a “bibliomaniac”. He used his abundant books for his own creative purposes.
This concise and comprehensive study of the library of Wilkie Collins must bring alive and relevant again the lost world of a Victorian book collector, and the useful interaction of the book culture of the past with the vital creativity of a very fertile and original Victorian kind. The volume is extremely well documented and has a good index. Its author has evidently searched the globe for data relating to Collins, resulting in a published study likely to remain a standard work on its subject, and also a basis for further research in the future. It must, therefore, be recommended unreservedly for purchase by academic establishments of any standing.
