107 ‘all escaped revolutionists’: Hunt, Pre-Raphaelitism. WC recreated this environment for Count Fosco in The Moonstone
108 ‘disgrac(ing) their walls’: Times, 3 May 1851
109 ‘Mr Collins was the superior in refinement’: WC in Bentley’s Miscellany, XXIX No. 174, June 1851, pp.617–27
110 ‘A Plea for Sunday Reform’: The Leader, 27 September 1851
111 ‘playing his favourite game of leapfrog’: R. H. Horne, ‘Mr Nightingale’s Diary’, The Gentleman’s Magazine, May 1871
112 ‘What a night!’, WC To EP, 22 November 1851, Huntington
113 ‘One of these “Brothers” happens’: WC to Richard Bentley, 28 November 1851, Illinois
114 ‘forbade from using his ‘brains’: WC to EP, 22 December 1851, Huntington
115 ‘his articles for The Leader’: over the months January to March 1853, Wilkie wrote six articles for The Leader, described collectively as ‘Magnetic Evenings At Home’. After G.H. Lewes wrote a rejoinder, Wilkie penned a final piece defending his sympathetic approach to animal magnetism
116 ‘having hired a local upholsterer’: WC to EP, 19 February 1852, Huntington
117 ‘I am neither a Protestant’: WC to EP, 6 February 1852, Huntington
118 ‘The Monktons of Wincot Abbey’: first published Fraser’s Magazine, November–December 1855. This was later published in book form in The Queen of Hearts (1859) as ‘Brother Griffith’s Story of Mad Monkton’
119 ‘(The Traveller’s Story of) a Terribly Strange Bed’: HW, 24 April 1852, later gathered in After Dark, 1856
120 ‘helped an unidentified friend’: ‘The Midnight Mass: An Episode in the History of the Reign of the Terror’, Bentley’s Miscellany, June 1852, pp.629–38
121 ‘George Eliot’s employer’: Eliot was assistant editor of John Chapman’s Westminster Review. Whether or not they had an affair is still debated. See Ashton, 142 Strand
122 ‘John Millais reported to Mrs Combe’: quoted in Ellis, Wilkie Collins, le Fanu and Others
123 ‘I am glad to hear that you could travel’: WC to HC, 7 July 1852, Morgan
124 ‘French dishes that would make you turn pale’: WC to HC, 13 February 1852, Pembroke
125 ‘the cleverest and the most agreeable woman’: WC to HC, 1 September 1852, Morgan
126 ‘Miss Chambers has sent me a very sharp letter’: WC to Nina Chambers, 27 March 1852, Princeton
127 ‘From there she described the Guild’s performance’: Nina Chambers to FL, 28 August 1852, Princeton
128 ‘The amateurs did not lose for Wilkie Collins’: New York Daily Times, 27 July 1852
129 ‘You have no idea how good Tenniel, Topham and Collins have been’: CD to John Forster, 4? September 1852, quoted Forster, Charles Dickens, P. v6, p.753
130 ‘hitherto interminable book’: WC to EP, 16 September 1852, Huntington
131 ‘a tale of criminality, almost revolting’: Athenaeum, 4 December 1852
132 ‘been vehemently objected to as immoral(!)’: WC to F.O. Ward, 5 March 1853, John Rylands Library, University of Manchester
133 ‘not strong enough yet’: WC to EP, 25 June 1853, Huntington
134 ‘Observe the hour above written’: WC to HC, 7 July 1853, Morgan
135 ‘Mr Coleridge, do not cry’: quoted Winter, Old Friends
136 ‘her personal memoir’: this is in the Harry Ransom Center, University of Texas at Austin. The date, 25 April 1853, neatly written out in her hand.
137 ‘the most delightful unselfish kind hearted creature’: quoted Fagence Cooper, The Model Wife
138 ‘jest with the old lady’: John E. Millais to WHH, 25 October 1852, BL, RP 565
139 ‘still a virgin at the age of thirty’: Marsh, Rossetti, p.199
140 ‘Hunt rented a room in a ‘maison de convenance’: this was Woodbine Villa, 7 Alpha Place, St John’s Wood, residence of Mrs Ford
141 ‘I am very sorry indeed to hear so bad’: CD to WC, 30 June 1953, Berg, P. v7, p.108
142 ‘really, and not conventionally’: WC to HC, 1 September 1853, Morgan
143 ‘at half the sacred’: WC to CAC, 12 August 1853, Morgan
144 ‘say I wish him long life’: ibid.
145 ‘the only real difficulty’: WC to George Bentley, 17 August 1853, Berg
146 ‘an accomplished man — but effeminate and mildly selfish’: Bulwer Lytton to CD, House et al. (ed.s), Letters of Charles Dickens, P. v2, p.110n
147 ‘Verdi’s last and noisiest production’: WC to CW, 31 October 1853, Morgan
148 ‘Wilkie, with his inbred’: a decade after Wilkie’s death, the Cornhill Magazine (November 1899) printed the following, under the initials W.H.: ‘I cannot leave this subject without recalling an anecdote Wilkie Collins once told me. At the time when the excitement against the Papal aggression was at its height, a Catholic friend offered to take him to one of Cardinal Wiseman’s receptions. Wilkie Collins accepted eagerly, and a few days later found himself ascending the stairs of the Cardinal’s modest house in York Place. He soon noticed that the men in front of him, as they arrived near their host, bent their knee and kissed his episcopal ring. As a good Protestant Wilkie Collins could not do likewise; ‘so it ended in our shaking hands and having a most pleasant talk after the crowd had passed.’ It is not known who W.H. was. Possibly it was a Shakespearean reference
149 ‘excruciatingly jealous of’: CD to Emile de la Rue, 23 October 1857, Berg, P. v8, p.472, quoted Tomalin, Charles Dickens, p.253
150 ‘because my present course of life’: WC to HC, 16 October 1853, Morgan
151 ‘his habit of whistling opera hits’: CD told his wife that Wilkie liked to whistle whole overtures, but never remembered them from start to finish. He had to ask Wilkie to lay off singing the Overture to Rossini’s ‘William Tell’. See CD to Catherine Dickens, BL, 27 November 1853, P. v7, p.215
152 ‘Imagine the procession – led by Collins’: CD to Catherine Dickens, BL, 27 November 1853, P. v7, p.215
153 ‘occasionally expands a code of morals’: CD to Catherine Dickens, BL, 21 November 1853, P v.7, p.204
154 For background on whiskers in the mid-nineteenth century I am indebted to the article ‘From Squalid Impropriety to Manly Respectability: The Revival of Beards, Moustaches and Martial Values in the 1850s in England’ by Susan Walton in Nineteenth Century Contexts, vol. 30, No 3, September 2008, and to Paul Lewis for drawing it to my attention
155 ‘Why Shave?’: HW, 27 August 1853
156 ‘My sentiments on the subject’: WC to CW, 16 March 1854, Huntington
157 ‘expressing support for John Bright’: WC to George Bentley, 24 January 1855, BL
158 ‘If this war continues’: WC to Richard Bentley, 12 July 1854, Illinois
159 ‘go to Thebes & Memphis’: CAC to WHH, BL, RP 565
160 ‘not so much because she had been denied’: see Fagence Cooper, The Model Wife. WC would refer cynically the following year to the French way of describing childbirth as ‘the Sublime Fact of Maternity’(to E.M. Ward, 13/20 March 1855, Texas)
161 ‘William Rossetti compared it’: Morning Post, 13 July 1854
162 ‘far away the cleverest Novel’: CD to Georgina Hogarth, 22 July 1854, Princeton, P. v7, p.376
163 ‘the candidates’ book’: my thanks to Marcus Risdell, archivist at the Garrick Club, for this information
164. ‘Wilkie lent him support’: WC to EP, (Tuesday) July 1854, Huntington
165 ‘the celebrated 1846 champagne’: CD to WC, 12 July 1854, Morgan, P v7, p.366
166 ‘in the English way’: WC to CAC, 7 September 1854, Morgan
167 ‘The Lawyer’s Story of a Stolen Letter’: published HW, December 1854, p.408 – later After Dark
168 ‘I am as poor as Job just now’: WC to EP, 14 March 1855, Huntington
169 ‘he had felt he would explode’: CD to Forster, 29? September 1854, quoted Forster, Dickens P. v7, p.428
170 ‘gorgeously-furnished drawing-room’: WC to
HC, 14 February 1855, Morgan
171 ‘strong medicine’: CD to Regnier, 14 February 1855, Comedie Francaise, P. v7, p.537
172 ‘inspect the Hospital’: CD to WC, 4 March 1855, Morgan, P v.7, p.554
173 ‘I am in the Doctor’s hands again’: WC to E.M Ward, 13/20 March 1855, Texas
174 ‘an amiably, corroded hermit’: CD to WC, 4 April 1855, P v7, p.585, Morgan
175 ‘three scabrous articles in consecutive weeks’: The Leader on 12, 19, 26 May 1855
176 ‘where Egg was now living’: The Elms, Campden Hill from c. 1853. This was a charity performance in aid of the Bournemouth Sanitorium for Consumption and Diseases of the Chest on 10 July 1855
177 ‘a regular old-style Melo Drama’; CD to Curtis Stanfield, v7, pp.624–5. See Bibliography for information on the edition edited by Andrew Gasson and Caroline Radcliffe
178 ‘Mrs Collins sat next to me’: quoted Lehmann, Ancestors and Friends
179 ‘he ‘half reside[d]’’: Millais to Thomas Combe, 30 January 1855, quoted Millais, Life and Letters, p.245
180 ‘May he consummate successfully!: WC to EP, 3 July 1855, Huntington
181 ‘I cannot helping touting for matrimony’: Millais to WHH from Annat Lodge, Saturday, n.y., BL, RP 565
182 ‘a new, quieter holiday house’: 3 Albion Villas, Folkestone
183 ‘This place is full’: WC to HC, 2 September 1855, Morgan
184 ‘tempting Providence’: WC to EP, 4 September 1855, Huntington
185 ‘old complaint’: CD to WC, 12 February 1856, Morgan, P. v8, p.53
186 ‘rheumatic pains’: WC to HC, 11 March 1856, Morgan
187 ‘I like the situation of the house’: WC to HC, 5 April 1856, Morgan
188 ‘rather proud’: WC to HC, 19 March 1856, Morgan
189 ‘five consecutive editions’: HW, 1–29 March 1856
190 ‘who has a good eye for pictures’: CD to John Forster, 2? March 1856, extracts in Forster, Dickens P. v8, p.66
191 ‘the corrupt Institution to which you belong’: WC to E.M. Ward, 18 March 1856, Texas
192 ‘old days’: CD to Forster, 13 April 1856, extracts in Forster, Dickens P. v8, p.89
193 ‘our own National Argyll Rooms’: CD to WC, 22 April 1856, Morgan, P. v8, p.96
194 ‘a distressingly pained account’: see Charles A. Collins, ‘Apology for his Art under a deep sense of high minded responsibility’ (essay about the Electric Telegraph), dated 22 April 1856, 2 Percy St, Huntington
195 ‘Howland Street’: Wilkie’s arrival in Howland Street can be dated from a letter from CAC to WHH, dated 23 April 1856, which refers to him there. BL, RP 565
196 Caroline’s birth: see register of births for Toddington Parish Church at Gloucestershire Archives, P335/IN1/4
197 ‘Caroline gave birth’: Elizabeth Harriet Graves, b. 3 February 1851, GRO birth certificate
198 ‘Cumming Street’: number 11 Cumming Street
199 ‘seedier Charlton Street’: number 5 Charlton Street
200 ‘by John Guille Millais’: The Life and Letters of Sir John Everett Millais, published in 1899
201 ‘The observation from Katey’: see Storey, Dickens and Daughter, p.213
202 ‘very decolleté white silk gown’: FL to NL, quoted Lehmann, Ancestors and Friends
203 ‘Ancient Mariner’: CD to WC, 26 October 1856, Morgan, P. v8, p.214
204 ‘In his piece for Household Words’: ‘My London Lodgings’, HW, 14 June 1856
205 ‘The Diary of Anne Rodway’: HW, 19–26 July 1856
206 ‘personal pride and pleasure’, CD to WC, 13 July 1856, Morgan, P. v8, p.162
207 ‘great merit, and real pathos’: CD to Macready, 8 July 1856, Morgan, P. v8, p.157
208 ‘a £20 bonus’: CD to Wills, 10 July 1856, Rosenbach, P. v8, p.159
209 ‘exceedingly quick to take my notions’: CD to W.H. Wills, 16 September 1856, Huntington, P. v8, p.188
210 ‘I am the Captain’: CD to Burdett Coutts, 4 December 1856, Morgan, P. v8, p.231
211 ‘My Black Mirror’: HW, 6 September 1856
212 ‘To Think, or Be Thought For’: HW, 13 September 1856
213 ‘A Petition to the Novel-Writers’: HW, 6 December 1856
214 ‘Bold Words by a Bachelor’: HW, 13 December 1856
215 ‘exclusive exhibition of Pre-Raphaelite art’: this was dominated by Rossetti – with Lizzie Siddall – cocking a snook at the Royal Academy
216 ‘a perfect hurricane’: WC to HC, 10 August 1857, Pembroke
217 ‘Mrs Badgery’: HW, 26 September 1857
218 ‘The Lazy Tour of Two Idle Apprentices’: published in HW, starting 3 October 1857, and in the following four numbers
219 ‘A Sermon for Sepoys’: HW, 27 February 1858
220 ‘Dr Livingstone in Africa’: HW, 23 January 1858
221 ‘a moment’s peace or content’: CD to WC, 21 March 1858, Morgan, P v8, p.536
222 ‘Who is the Thief’: Atlantic Monthly, April 1858
223 ‘recent trial of Madeline Smith’: March 1857
224 ‘A Paradoxical Experience’: HW, 13 November 1858
225 ‘proliferation of crinolines’: HW, 13 February 1858
226 ‘to protest against poor service on trains and buses’: HW, 6 February 1858
227 ‘the problem of female bores’: ‘A Shockingly Rude Article’, HW, 28 August 1858
228 ‘in one piece’: ‘Dr Dulcamara MP’, HW, 18 December 1858
229 ‘The Unknown Public’: HW, 21 August 1858
230 ‘extreme suffering and anxiety’: CAC to WHH, in 1855, Hunt Mss, Huntingdon Library, quoted ODNB
231 ‘caution Willie against committing himself’: CAC to HC, 19 November 1858, Morgan, MA 3153
232 ‘My term, at my own house’: WC to Jane Ward, 1 December 1858, Private
233 ‘Only eighteen months earlier’: Reynolds’s Newspaper, 7 June 1857
234 ‘keeps you company and makes you your grog’: WC to CW, 4 May 1859
235 ‘a small malady’: CD to F C Beard, 25 June 1859, Dickens Museum, P v9, p.84
236 ‘no silver nitrate’: CD to WC, 16 August 1859, Dartmouth College, P v9, p.106
237 ‘I have nothing particular to record’: WC to CW, 19 July 1859, Morgan
238 ‘Etude sur le roman anglais’: Revue des Deux Mondes, 1 November 1855
239 ‘a gentleman, an admirable English scholar’: WC to Reade, 31 March 1863, Morgan
240 ‘all drawn out’: WC to James Lowe, 13 April 1858, Texas
241 ‘an entirely new form of narrative’: WC to F.H. Underwood, 12 August 1858, Houghton
242 ‘According to a note’: see The Woman in White: A chronological study by Andrew Gasson, Wilkie Collins Society, 2010
243 ‘I must stagger the public into attention’: WC to Wills, 15 August 1859, quoted Lehmann, Memories of Half a Century
244 ‘Edmund Yates later expanded on this’: Yates, ‘Celebrities at Home’. It is not entirely clear that Yates wrote this piece, which appeared in his magazine Temple Bar on 28 December 1877, but it seems likely. It was later reprinted in his book Celebrities at Home, published in 1879
245 ‘name of names’: CD to WC, 16 August 1859, Dartmouth College, P. v9, p.106
246 for more on Dr John Conolly and the ‘lunacy panic’ see http://www.erudit.org/revue/ravon/2008/v/n49/017855ar.html and Wise, Inconvenient People.
Barlow, The Abode of Love is illuminating on the Nottidge case and Agapemone
247 ‘he devised a form’: Medical Digest, vol 1, 1865. See also letter from Dr Richard Neale, BMJ, 10 January 1885
248 ‘Pigott’s brother in law’: Edwin Fydell Fox, 1814–91
249 ‘inveighed against the abuses’: see John Perceval, A narrative of the treatment experienced by a gentleman, during a state of mental derangement, London Effingham Wilson, 1840. See also Andrew Roberts’s magnificent online work on the Lunacy Commission: http://studymore.org.uk/01.htm
250 ‘What Shall
We Do With Our Old Maids?’: Fraser’s Magazine, November 1862
251 ‘Celibacy vs. Marriage’: Fraser’s Magazine, also 1862
252 ‘revealed secrets which must tend to modify immensely’: quoted in Griffin, The Politics of Genders in Victorian Britain
253 ‘an evident understanding’: see Mitchell, Frances Power Cobbe
254 ‘In civil life, I am neither daughter’: see Sarah Wise, ‘A Novel for Hysterical Times’, History Today, August 2012. I am grateful to her for the insights both in this article and her book, Inconvenient People
255 ‘The two of them met’: see ‘Walter’s Walk’ by Paul Lewis, Wilkie Collins Society, 2010
256 ‘one of the two ‘most dramatic’ scenes in literature’: quoted Sir Henry Dickens, The Recollections of Sir Henry Dickens, Heinemann, 1934
257 ‘all but insuperable . . . difficulties’: WC to CW, 18 August 1859, Morgan
258 ‘two ‘disagreeable’ evangelical girls’: CD to Mary and Kate Dickens, 2 September 1859, P. v9, p.115, quoted Georgina Hogarth and Mamie Dickens, The Letters of Charles Dickens
259 ‘charmed with the Butler’: CD to WC, 16 September 1859, Morgan, P. v9, p.123
260 ‘commending Pigott’s ‘delicious tenor voice’: George Eliot to Charles Lee Lewes, 7 October 1859, copy courtesy Jonathan Ouvry
261 ‘a sturdy uprightness about him’: George Eliot, Journals, 10 November 1858
262 (she) must have seen My Person!’: WC to CW, 14 August 1860, Pembroke
263 ‘continues to spin madly’: WC to CW, 19 July 1859, Morgan
264 ‘a pattern wedding’: WC to Mrs Procter, 23 July 1860, Princeton
265 ‘Lehmann, saw it differently’: Frederick Lehmann’s account of the wedding between Charley Collins and Katey Dickens appears in his son Rudolph Lehmann’s Memories of Half a Century, pp.92–5
266 ‘departed for a honeymoon in France’: CAC/KC to HC from Calais, 29 July [1860], Morgan
267 ‘Hooray!!!!! I have this instant written’: WC to HC, 26 July 1860, Morgan
268 ‘Dickens’s congratulations’: CD to WC, 29 July 1860, Morgan, P. v9, p.276
269 ‘impression of Alice’s brother Leslie’: Ward, Forty Years of Spy
270 ‘Frederick Lehmann’s son Rudolph’: Lehmann, Memories of Half a Century
Wilkie Collins: A Life of Sensation Page 42