William, the narrator and faithful servant to rich widow, Mrs. Norcross, tells the story of his mistress’ unhappy second marriage to James Smith. A detective lawyer’s clerk, Mr. Dark, both confirms Smith’s bigamous remarriage and, following his disappearance, proves Mrs. Norcross and William innocent of murder. Dark also recovers jewelry stolen by the maidservant and establishes her guilt. William’s amiable relationship with the experienced detective foreshadows that between Betteredge and Cuff in The Moonstone.

This delightful tale of thwarted ambition and forbidden love follows the adventures and fortunes of an endearing young rogue, Frank Softly. Originally appearing serialized in Household Words in 1859, the rogue is one of Collins’ most richly comic creations.

Propelled into society by his ever-hopeful father, Frank is introduced to a variety of professions in order to make his fortune. Not industrious by nature, Frank finds working life a challenge, and by his twenty-fifth birthday, he has failed in medicine, portrait-painting, caricaturing, and even forgery. Disenchanted with life, he despairs of ever finding something to commit to–until he meets Alicia Dulcifer and her inexplicably wealthy father.

Proffering his own take on picaresque storytelling–and with many a grain of truth for twentysomethings today–this is Wilkie Collins at his entertaining best.

A fascinating short story by the renowned author of The Woman in White

Captain Stanwick and Lionel Varleigh are old friends, but after falling out over their attentions to Bertha Laroche, they fight an illegal duel in Herne Wood. Stanwick, wrongly convinced he has killed Varleigh, goes mad and attempts to kill himself with a razor … when his supposed victim returns like an apparition from the dead.

The Dead Alive, also called John Jago’s Ghost, is a novella written in 1874 by the author of The Moonstone and The Woman in White, Wilkie Collins, and is based on the Boorn Brothers murder case.
When invalid barrister Phillip LeFrank visits his cousin’s farm in America, he’s hoping for a quiet convalescence. He is to be seriously disappointed, finding the farm to be a hotbed of jealousy, spite, hidden passions…and apparently; murder.
Is his cousin, Ambrose, as innocent as his betrothed claims? Is she?
Narrated by Michael Ward.

“In one respect, men are all alike; they hate to see a woman in tears.”

Paired with Blackstone’s and Skyboat Media’s production of Wilkie Collins’s The Evil Genius, Skyboat Media presents the dramatic adaptation of the novel, also by Wilkie Collins. Although both versions of the story were written at the same time, the play has never before been published and was only ever performed once on the stage. In fact, it is almost entirely unknown and is otherwise unavailable.

Miss Sydney Westerfield has been saved from a lonely life of teaching at her aunt’s school and taken into service as a governess for Kitty, daughter of Herbert and Catherine Linley. Kitty simply adores Sydney, and Catherine does as well for the governess’s warmth and kindness as a caretaker and a member of their household. But when Herbert and Sydney fall in love, it is only a matter of time before the truth must come out–helped along, of course, by Catherine’s mother, the fierce gossip and foremost meddler Mrs. Presty.

Infidelity, divorce, and child custody are at the forefront of this tale of domestic drama, but Wilkie Collins takes a most modern approach to the view of women in such situations. Not only does Collins offer sympathy–empathy even–for these women that was not at all common at the time, he also remembers to keep a spotlight on young Kitty, whose life will be forever shaped by the affairs of the adults around her.

This full-cast recording of both the novel and the play will fully immerse you in a truly forward-thinking portrait of love and betrayal.

When the Countess Narona meets Agnes Lockwood, the woman jilted by her fiancé, she feels a great sense of foreboding. After Countess Narona’s marriage, she moves with her husband, Lord Montbarry, to Venice. There, disowned by his family, the lord apparently becomes a recluse and falls fatally ill. As much as Agnes tries to forget the episode of her broken engagement, her fate and that of the countess seem to be inextricably woven. Both are relentlessly drawn to the Palace Hotel in Venice for a final and dramatic encounter in the room where more than past emotions resurface to haunt them.

Loosely based on a case from the annals of French crime, the scene, scenery, players, conflicts, and especially the horror of this mystery come through the invention of one of our classic novelists.

Stolen from the forehead of a Hindu idol, the dazzling gem known as “The Moonstone” resurfaces at a birthday party in an English country home – with an enigmatic trio of watchful Brahmins hot on its trail. Laced with superstitions, suspicion, humor, and romance, this 1868 mystery draws readers into a compelling tale with twists and turns ranging from sleepwalking to experimentation with opium. The suspense and drama is heightened as the narrative passes from one colorful character to the next. Wilkie Collins’ masterpiece is particularly distinguished by the appearance of Sergeant Cuff, a prototype of the English detective hero and the harbinger of a popular tradition of sleuthing.

In The Moonstone, credited as the first detective story written in the English language, Wilkie Collins weaves a classic mystery, told from the perspective of several characters with firsthand knowledge surrounding the disappearance of a large yellow diamond known as the Moonstone. The jewel was taken from the room of its young owner, Rachel Verinder, who was bequeathed the diamond by a ne’er-do-well uncle who looted it from the statue of the Hindu Moon God during the siege of Seringapatam. Since then, Hindu Priests have been bound and determined to recover the diamond and return it to its rightful place in the forehead of the god’s statue.

Called “the first and greatest of English detective novels” by T. S. Eliot, Wilkie Collins’s The Moonstone is a masterpiece of suspense.
A fabulous yellow diamond becomes the dangerous inheritance of Rachel Verinder. Outside her Yorkshire country house watch the Hindu priests who have waited for many years to reclaim their ancient talisman, looted from the holy city of Somnauth. When the Moonstone disappears, the case looks simple, but in mid-Victorian England no one is what they seem, and nothing can be taken for granted.
Witnesses, suspects, and detectives each narrate the story in turn. The bemused butler, the love-stricken housemaid, the enigmatic detective Sergeant Cuff, the drug-addicted scientist-each speculate on the mystery as Collins weaves their narratives together.

George and Mary were childhood friends. But then George’s father discovers his thirteen-year-old son feels true passion for his bailiff’s daughter. Determined to end the affair, George’s father sacks the bailiff and takes his son to America. Years later George returns to his native Suffolk to trace his lost love. Though she has long gone, George is determined to find Mary at any cost.

When Walter Hartright encounters a solitary, terrified, beautiful woman dressed in white on a moonlit night in London, he feels impelled to solve the mystery of her distress. Full of secrets, locked rooms, lost memories, and surprise revelations, The Woman in White features heroine Marian Halcombe and drawing-master Walter Hartright as sleuthing partners pitted against the diabolical Count Fosco and Sir Percival Glyde.

This gothic psychological thriller, a mesmerizing tale of murder, intrigue, madness, and mistaken identity, has gripped the imaginations of readers since its first publication in 1860. The breathtaking tension of Collins’ narrative created a new literary genre of suspense fiction, which profoundly shaped the course of English popular writing.

One of the greatest mystery thrillers ever written, Wilkie Collins’s The Woman in White was a phenomenal bestseller in the 1860s, achieving even greater success than works by Charles Dickens. Full of surprise, intrigue, and suspense, this vastly entertaining novel continues to enthrall audiences today.
The story begins with an eerie midnight encounter between artist Walter Hartright and a ghostly woman dressed all in white who seems desperate to share a dark secret. The next day Hartright, engaged as a drawing master to the beautiful Laura Fairlie and her half sister, tells his pupils about the strange events of the previous evening. Determined to learn all they can about the mysterious woman in white, the three soon find themselves drawn into a chilling vortex of crime, poison, kidnapping, and international intrigue.
Masterfully constructed, The Woman in White is dominated by two of the finest creations in all Victorian fiction-Marion Halcombe, dark, mannish, yet irresistibly fascinating, and Count Fosco, the sinister and flamboyant “Napoleon of Crime.”

The Yellow Mask, a gothic romance filled with mystery and suspense, will hold you riveted from beginning to end.

A scheming priest, Father Rocco of Pisa, decides the inheritance and great wealth of Count Fabio d’Ascoli was stolen from the church many generations ago and aims to steal it back. In order to do so, the priest manipulates Fabio’s true love, the sweet model Nanina, to leave Pisa. Father Rocco then engineers a wedding between Fabio and his easily manipulated niece, the beautiful Maddelena. Poor Maddalena dies the next year in childbirth, and the priest is forced to alter his plan. He tries to drive Fabio mad by having a female henchman don a Yellow Mask and pretend to be the ghost of Maddalena. Fabio’s only hope is his beloved Nanina. Can she save him?