Blind Love

by Wilkie Collins

Overview

Blind Love was an unfinished novel by Wilkie Collins, which he left behind on his death in 1889. It was completed by historian and novelist Sir Walter Besant.

Collins's novel had already begun serialization in The Illustrated London News, even though the author had not yet completed it. (It ran from 6 July to 28 December of that year.) When it was published in book form on 1890, the volume included Besant's preface explaining the circumstances of the collaboration.

Collins had started writing the novel in 1887, when newspapers were full of stories about Fenian violence in the wake of the previous year's defeat of the First Irish Home Rule Bill. Collins frequented Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese off London's Fleet Street and borrowed some traits for his male protagonist from John O'Connor Power who was also well known in the convivial tavern. Collins links the Irish Question to the Woman Question. The novel recounts the story of Lord Harry Norland, a member of a squad of political assassins; the book's heroine is Iris Henley, a bold and nonconformist Englishwoman who falls in love with the Irish Norland despite his criminal activities (the "blind love" of the title). The title was originally to have been Lord Harry, the colloquial name for the devil. (wikipedia.org)

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781636375427
Publisher:	Bibliotech Press
Publication date:	11/11/2022
Pages:	260
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.59(d)

About the Author

Wilkie Collins (1824-1889) was an English novelist and playwright. Born in London, Collins was raised in England, Italy, and France by William Collins, a renowned landscape painter, and his wife Harriet Geddes. After working for a short time as a tea merchant, he published Antonina (1850), his literary debut. He quickly became known as a leading author of sensation novels, a popular genre now recognized as a forerunner to detective fiction. Encouraged on by the success of his early work, Collins made a name for himself on the London literary scene. He soon befriended Charles Dickens, forming a strong bond grounded in friendship and mentorship that would last several decades. His novels The Woman in White (1859) and The Moonstone (1868) are considered pioneering examples of mystery and detective fiction, and enabled Collins to become financially secure. Toward the end of the 1860s, at the height of his career, Collins began to suffer from numerous illnesses, including gout and opium addiction, which contributed to his decline as a writer. Beyond his literary work, Collins is seen as an early advocate for marriage reform, criticizing the institution and living a radically open romantic lifestyle.

Walter Besant (1836–1901) was born in Portsmouth, Hampshire and studied at King's College, London. He would later work in higher education at Royal College, Mauritius, where he taught mathematics. During this time, Besant also began his extensive writing career. In 1868 he published Studies in Early French Poetry followed by a fruitful collaboration with James Rice, which produced Ready-money Mortiboy (1872), and The Golden Butterfly(1876). Besant’s career spanned genres and mediums including fiction, non-fiction, plays and various collections.

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

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements

• Historical Context: The Irish Question
  Wilkie Collins’s Response to the Irish Question
  Anglo-Saxon vs. Celt: The Imperialist Agenda
  Wilkie Collins and the “Woman Question”
  The Von Scheurer Fraud
  Blind Love: The History and Evolution of the Text

William Wilkie Collins: A Brief Chronology

A Note on the Text

Blind Love

Appendix A: Reaction to the Death of Wilkie Collins

1. “Death of Mr.Wilkie Collins,” The Times, 24 September 1889
2. “The Late Mr.Wilkie Collins,” The Illustrated London News, 28 September 1889
3. “Obituary.Wilkie Collins,” The Academy, 28 September 1889

Appendix B: Contemporary Reviews of Collins’s Work

1. Edmund Yates, “The Works of Wilkie Collins,” Temple Bar, August 1890
2. Meredith White Thompson,“Wilkie Collins,” The Spectator, 28 September 1889
3. George Cotterell, “New Novels,” The Academy, 15 March 1890
4. “Blind Love,” New York Tribune, 23 January 1890
5. Andrew Lang, “Mr. Wilkie Collins’s Novels,” Contemporary Review, January 1890
6. Harold Quilter, “In Memoriam Amici: Wilkie Collins,” The Universal Review, 5, 1889

Appendix C: Horace Pym’s Notes on the Von Scheurer Case

Appendix D: Newspaper Accounts of the Insurance Trial

1. “The Scheurer Frauds,” The Times, 25 April 1888
2. “France,” The Times, 26 April 1888
3. “France,” The Times, 27 April 1888

Appendix E: The Prologue to “Iris,” Manuscript “C,” 1887

Appendix F: Excerpts from Collins’s Plans for Blind Love: The Synopsis

1. The Cast of Characters
2. The Synopsis

Appendix G: The Irish Question

1. Accounts from The Times, 1882
2. The Irish as Depicted in Punch, 1866, 1881, 1882

Appendix H: The Duties of the Lady’s Maid

Select Bibliography

Editorial Reviews

This edition of Collins’s Blind Love offers the best of modern scholarship—it is impossible to praise it too much. Professors Bachman and Cox add considerably to Broadview’s series of reasonably-priced fine scholarly editions.” — A.D. Hutter, UCLA

From the Publisher