8 January: Boreham on Wilkie Collins

A Master of Mystery
In the heyday of the great Victorian era, when Homeric figures stalked the earth like huge colossi, Wilkie Collins whose birthday we mark today, held his own with the best of them. It was an age of beards; and Londoners, who thrilled at the sight of the shapely beard of Charles Dickens, the shaggy beard of Thomas Carlyle, and the well trimmed beard of Alfred Tennyson, were scarcely less familiar with a solemn-looking man of medium height, whose slightly stooping shoulders supported an enormous head, a head that Holman Hunt longed in vain to paint. That head was made even more imposing by an immense beard of rich brown. Everybody knew Wilkie Collins—a brilliant talker and a most engaging companion.

Wilkie Collins inherited genius. The son of one of the best landscape painters of his day, and the godson of Sir David Wilkie, the first thoughts of the gifted youth naturally turned to art, and when, at the age of 25, one of his paintings was accorded a place of honour in the Royal Academy, his career seemed to have been definitely and irrevocably determined. The world and his wife took it for granted that Wilkie Collins, having derived his surname from one illustrious academician and his Christian name from another, and having already achieved that glittering distinction of which most aspiring artists fondly but vainly dream, would spend the rest of his days with the palette and the easel. But the young painter was only feeling his way. He afterwards toyed with the idea of becoming an actor and was complimented by Queen Victoria on one of his performances. As a matter of fact, whilst the visitors to the Academy were admiring his picture, he was studying law, and he was still pursuing that less romantic course when, two years later, princes and peers applauded his appearance before the footlights. In November, 1851, at the age of 27 he was called to the Bar, and although, like his artistic career and his stage career, his legal career was merely a flirtation, he was always thankful for the experience that he gained in chambers.

The Formative Value Of A Great Friendship
The great climacteric in the life of Wilkie Collins was reached on the night on which he met Dickens. The two men seemed made for each other, a fact that they half recognised when they clasped hands for the first time. Dickens, who was 39, was 12 years older than his new friend, but both had become familiar figures in literary circles. Dickens, indeed, had almost reached the height of his amazing popularity, having recently crowned his earlier triumphs by the publication of "David Copperfield." But Wilkie Collins had also caught the public fancy. Whilst he was still a law student his father had died. In response to numerous requests, the son undertook to write the great painter's biography. The work was so skilfully and attractively done that everybody urged him to apply his talents to literature.

In musing on these suggestions, he remembered a mass of pencilled notes that, as a boy, he had compiled during a holiday visit to Rome. Hunting them out, he made them the foundation of his novel "Antonina or the Fall of Rome." If Wilkie Collins had written nothing else, we should probably have treasured "Antonina" as an excellent historical romance. It certainly established his fame, whetted the appetite of a large constituency, and set him groping for a new theme. It was at this crucial moment that Dickens came into his life. Seldom has a literary friendship been more fruitful of good to both parties. In its earlier stages, Dickens was the tutor and Collins the pupil, but later on, the relationship was destined to be reversed. As soon as they settled down to plan their future programme, Dickens convinced his companion that, to win the affection of the English public, he must write, not about Italy, but about England. Laying this vital lesson well to heart, Wilkie Collins wrote his "Hide and Seek," dedicating the venture to Dickens.

The Pupil Becomes The Tutor
During the years that followed, the two men saw more and more of each other, frequently spending long holidays together. It was not until their friendship was six years old, however, that Wilkie Collins found his true self. In 1857, at the age of 33, he published "The Dead Secret," the first of those intriguing romances that, involving the reader in a maze of bewildering mystery, and beguiling him into a multitude of futile guesses, secured for their author a place distinctively his own in the republic of English letters. He had found his metier and he followed it until he produced "The Moonstone," probably the most superb detective story in the language. It happened that, shortly after the appearance of the first of these perplexing tales, Dickens wanted a new serial for "Household Words." His own "Tale of Two Cities" was rapidly approaching its dramatic and tragic close. He asked Wilkie Collins to fill the gap. Responding with alacrity to so alluring an invitation, Collins wrote "The Woman in White," and, by that act, gripped the imagination of the English-speaking world.

In the high craftsmanship of conceiving a devious and complicated plot, of keeping all its threads under perfect control, and of weaving them into an artistic and fascinating fabric, Wilkie Collins has never been surpassed. Even Dickens opened his eyes in admiring astonishment and submitted to be instructed by his erstwhile pupil. A comparison of the earlier with the later works of Dickens will reveal the extent to which the master was influenced by his friend. The later books conform to the Collins tradition and Dickens made no attempt to conceal his indebtedness. Unhappily for the world, the health of Wilkie Collins collapsed while his powers were still at their prime. He wrote nothing after he was 40. He became a nervous and physical wreck, took opium in prodigious quantities to alleviate his misery, and, after a quarter of a century of depressing inactivity, he sighed with relief on taking leave of a world that he had so brilliantly enriched.

F W Boreham

Image: Wilkie Collins