The Evil Genius: A Domestic Story

by Wilkie Collins

Overview

As a prelude to the main story, we first encounter the proceedings of a trial. Roderick Westerfield is being tried for theft and insurance fraud. He is the second son of an English Lord, and so, could inherit neither the title of his father nor his financial holdings. Roderick also embarrassed the family by marrying a woman whose vocation was a barmaid. His elder brother, though, tried to assist him by getting him work on a Merchant ship as a first mate, and he successfully saved the ship from destruction in a storm, a storm which also took the life of the Captain. Roderick then took over, but the ship was ultimately beached through no fault of Roderick, but a fortune in Brazilian gems was missing. Because Roderick had gambling debts, it was assumed that the gems were stolen by him so that Roderick could make good on what he owed. (Goodreads)

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9783968658155
Publisher:	Otbebookpublishing
Publication date:	02/17/2021
Series:	Classics To Go
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	264
File size:	1 MB

About the Author

William Wilkie Collins (8 January 1824 – 23 September 1889) was an English novelist and playwright known for The Woman in White (1859) and The Moonstone (1868). The last has been called the first modern English detective novel. Born to a London painter, William Collins, and his wife, the family moved to Italy when Collins was twelve, living there and in France for two years, so that he learned Italian and French. He worked at first as a tea merchant. On publishing his first novel, Antonina, in 1850, Collins met Charles Dickens, who became a friend and mentor. Some Collins works appeared first in Dickens's journals Household Words and All the Year Round. The two also collaborated on drama and fiction. Collins reached financial stability and an international following in the 1860s from his best-known works, but began to suffer from gout. He took opium for the pain, but became addicted to it. His health and his writing quality declined in the 1870s and 1880s. Collins was critical of the institution of marriage: he later split his time between widow Caroline Graves, with whom he had lived most of his adult life, treating her daughter as his, and the younger Martha Rudd, by whom he had three children.

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