THE WORLD OF BOOKS.

Press, Volume LX, Issue 17981, 26 January 1924, Page 11

THE WORLD OF BOOKS.

HALF-HOURS IN A LIBRARY.

(aPjiCti-LLT TOTTBJf XOB "THB 78X53.") Br A. H. Gbikijiio. XLY.— ON WILKIE COLLINS. Turning over the pages of that indispensable reference book, the Daily Mail Year Book for 1924, I came across a reminder that William Wilkie Collins, novelist and intimate friend of Charles Dickens, was born in Tavistock square, London, on January Bth, 1824, and died on September 23rd, 1889. Wilkie Collins • —'he always called himself and was known to his friends as Wilkie, his other name, Yvilliam, going by default —was, in the days of my voutli, a name to conjure with. Would that I could recall the ecstatic thrills of my first reading of "The Woman in White" and "The Moonstone." An American critic, Professor Wilbur L. Cross, says of Wilkie Collins: "It was he who handed ovei the detective story from I'oe to the author of 'Sherlock Holmes.' " This, while correct as far as it goeß, is insufficient to describe the gift of writing sensational fiction possessed by the novelist, a gift which aroused the enthusiasm of Swinburne and excited the admiration of Dickens himself. The test of the capabilities of Wilkie Coilins is to be found in his brilliant suocess in the palmiest years of Victorian fiction. He published his maiden novel, "Antonina," in the year 1850, "The period," says Mr Lewis Melville, "when literary giants abounded and each year witnessed the production of literary masterpieces." Melville waxes enthusiastic on thia point, and his summary is interesting and instructive:—

Between 1847 and 1834 Thackeray published Vanity Fair, Pendennis, Esmond, and The Newcomes—the cream of his work; Dickens, at the zenith of his power, wrote David Copperfield and Bleak House; Disraeli completed the trilogy which consists of Coningsby, Sybil, and Tancred; the Bronte 3 produced Jane Eyre, Shirley, Villette, Agnes Grey, and Wuthering Heights; Lytton issued Harold, and then struck a new vein with The Caxtons and My Novel; Mrs Gaskell attracted attention with Mary Barton, Moorland Cottage, and Cranford; while Charles Kingsley won fame with Alton Locke, Yeast and liypatia; and Charles Reade rose into note with Peg WofEngton and Christie Johnstone. Anthony Trollope and Whyte-Kel-ville appeared on the literary horizon» George Meredith published a volume oi poems and was writing the Shaving of Shagpat; but George Js]iot was known only as the translator of Strauas's Life _ of Jesus, and Feuer bach's Essence of Christianity, Wilkie Collins outlived all those writers, Bave George Meredith.

Lewis 'Melville puts his finger on the secret of the success of Wilkie Collins when he says:-—"Though living when famous novelists flourished he was the greatest storyteller of them all."' Both Dickens and Thackeray were inclined—prompted thereto oftentimes by the urgency of serial publications—to subordinate the story to a favourite theme or to the undue development of a character. In Thackeray's novels there is continual ovidence of the interposition of little sermons and the interjection of personal asides, the result of the urgent call for another instalment of n story coining at a time when, to use the iioveli&t's own expression, "My Pegasus won't flv." Dickens over and over again exasperates his readers because at an exciting point *ho interrupts the narrative in order to introduce a fresh set of characters. Wilkie Collins's influcnco upon Dickons was a.s great as that of Dickens upon him. "Dickons,'' remarked Thomas Seccombe, '' longed to shine as an elaborate? of plots, while Collins, the past master of plots, aspired to be a delineator of character and to produce. didactic fiction and reformatory romance after the Dickensiari model. "Swinburne elaborates the comparison between the two novelists in a sketch of- Wilkie Collins included in his "Studies in Prose and Poetry.":—

In "The Dead Secret/' Wilkie Collins made his mark for the first time as- a writer who coul-i do something"that no ore else could—and something well worth doing. The skill of the plot, the construction, and the narrative, whatever such skill may be worth, was far beyond the reach of any contemporary, however far above him in the loftier and clearer qualities of genius. Dickens never wrote and Thackeray never tried to write a story so excellent in construction and so persistent in its hold on the reader's curiosity—a curiosity amounting, in the case of ' its younger and more impressionable readers, to absolute amiety.

"The Woman in White" was first published serially in "All the Year Bound" at the time when Wilkie Collins and Charles Dickens frequently collaborated.. It .appeared in volume form in 1860, and so great was the popularity of the story that it ran into seven editions within six months of its first publication, and was translated into several languages. In a preface to a revised edition of "Th© Woman in White," penned in 1861, Wilkie Collins expounded the principles of his literary faith:-

It is no affectation on my part to saythat the success of this book has been especially welcome to me', because it itnplied the recognition of a literary principle which has guided me since I first addressed my readers in the character of a novelist.

I have always held the old-fashioned opinion that the primary object of a work of fiction should be to tell a story; and I have, never believed that the novelist who properly performed this lirst condition of his art was in danger on that account, of neglecting the delineation of character—for the plain reason that the effect produced by any narrative of events is essentially dependent, not on the events themselves, but on the human interest which i 3 directly connected with them. It may be possible in novel writing to present characters successfully without telling a story; but it is not possible to tell a story successfully without presenting characters; their existence, as recognisable realities, being the sole condition on which the story can be effectively told. The only narrative which can hope to lay a strong hold on the attention, of readers is a narrative which interests them about men and women—for the perfectly obvious reason that they are men and women themselves.

The reception accorded "to "The Woman in White" has practically confirmed these, opinions and has satisfied me that I may trust to them in the future. Here is a novel which has met with a, very kind reception because it is a Story; and hero is a story, the interest of which as - know by the testimony, voluntarily addressed to me, of the readers themselves—is never disconnected from the interest of character. "Laura," "Miss Halcombe," and "Anne Catheric," "Count Fosco," ' "Mr Fairlie," and "Walter Hartright" have made friends for me wherever they havo made themselves known.

The reason for the preface was that ''The Woman in White," ivhen published in volume uaa severely handled by the reviewers. Wilkie Collins'a mother—he was still livin"- at home when the story cam© out—was much distressed at the Press notices which were "nearly as bad as it was possible for the , good critics to make them." Concurrently -with the reviews came a huge pile of letters congratulating the author on his achievement. Now," thought Wilkie Collins (1 am quoting from Hall Caine's "My &tory ), ' this teaches ine a lesson.

These letters are nearlv all fro lll total strangers, and may be said to represent in some measure" the omnion of tne general public. These r'eviews are by professional writers, some of them m.intimate friends. Either the public is right and the press wrong, or the P rcss is right and the public wrong. Time will tell.»' The success of •' The oman in White" was such that "Wilkie. 0 lins lost all faith in newspaper reviews of books; indeed, he altogether discounted their effect on public opinion. Ha" Caine's friendship with Wilkie Collins dated back to 18S7, the year or i«e publication of "The Deenisier." Tne issue of his first Manx novel hroug it to Hall Caine "a long letter, or generous and noble praise, but tu yj of candid and valuable ad\ ice from Wilkie Collins. It has been said of "Wilkie Collins that not only dul he outlive his contemporaries but he also outlived his fame, and the same mav be affirmed of his disciple, Sir Hall Came. The late David Christie Murray wrote in 1597 a little book entitled ' M\ Contemporaries in Fiction" and headed one chapter "Living MastersMeredith and Hall Caine"; _iu the light of to-day such an association is little short of ludicrous, which may be illustrated by an instance which came under my own notice. In the early part of 1914 Mr A. S. M. Hutchinson, then editor of the Daily Graphic, wrote a. severe criticism of Sir Ilall Caine s new novel ".The "Women Thou Gavest Me," which brought a reply from the veteran novelist, enjoining his youthful confrere to have respect to age and experience. Despite adverse criticism the book had a great vogue. To-day Mr Hutchinson himself has experience of rough handling by the press, but his books sell by. the thousand. All which goes to show that Wilkie Collins was right; the arbiters of fortune, in literature as in other things, are the people.

Wilkie Collins had considerable difficulty in choosing the title of ' The Woman in White." Sir Hall Came tells the story, which he says he may or may not liavo heard from Wilkie Collins's own lips. "A story could not bo published without a title, but neither tho author nor his friends could hit on ono (hat. seemed suitable. Dickens had been appealed to and had failed. So _ had Forster, who was prolific in good titles. Wilkie was in despair. The day was approaching when the story must begin in 'All the Year Round.' So one day the novelist took himself off to Broadstairs, determined not to return until a title had been found. He walked for hours along the cliff between Kingsgato and what is called Bleak House; he smoked a case of cigars, but all to no purpose; then, vexed and much worn by the racking of liis brains, he threw himself on the grass as the sun went down. He was facing tho North Foreland Lighthouse, and half in bitter jest, half unconsciously, he began to apostrophise it thus: 'You aro ugly and stiff and awkward; you know you are as stiff and as weird as my white woman —white woman —woman in white —the title, by Jove.' It was done; a title had been hit upon, and the author went back to London delighted."

"It is not," writes Professor Stoddard in tho "Evolution of the English Novel. " " the purposo episodes in the novels of Diclcens that are the strongest pages; it is the 'Moonstone' or "The Woman in White,' rather than 'Man and Wife' that will givo Willcie Collins enduring fame." Yet "The Woman in White" may be regarded as a purpose-novel. It was suggested by a letter from xui unknown correspondent who asked .Willcie Collins to interest himself in some real or supposed wrongful incarceration in a lunatic asylum. He chanced across an old French trial, in which the substitution of one person for another made tho mystery, and he conceived the idea of a substitution by means of a lunatic asylum. Once the plot had been ■ outlined the novelist developed his scones and characters, as Dickens once said of " The Moontone," " with , extraordinary care." Anthony Trollopo sfud of. the same book: "The composition is most minute and wonderful, but I can never lose the taste of tho construction." Another feature of Wilkie Collins's stories, which has doubtless militated against their permanent popularity,' is thus referred to bv Swinburne in connexion with "The Dead Secret": —.

Good as it is, this book is the first among many examples of' the too undeniable and characteristic fact that tlie remarkable genius of the author for invention and construction and composition of incidents and effects was limited by 'an incapacity and dependent upon a condition which cannot but be regarded ns seriously impairing his claims to consideration as an artist or a 3tudent He could not, as a rule, get forward at all without the help of some physical or moral infirmity in come one of the leading agent 3 or pationts of the story. Neither "The Dead Secret" nor "The Woman in White" rn'ild have run its course for a 6ingle velum'! if Sara-h Leeaon or Anne Catluiick had been sound in mind—not abnormally and constitutionally deficient in nerve and brain. And tho suggested or implied suffering, of such poor innocent wretches, the martvruom of perpetual -terror aAd agony inflicted on .tho shattered nerves or the shaken brain of a woman or a girl is surely a cruel and a painful mainspring for a story or a' plot. Again, if the lioro m this story and the heroine in another had not been blind there could have been no storv at all. It is in every case a wonderfully ingenious and interesting story that we enjoy; but the ungrateful reader cannot avoid' tho reflection that there is unlovely as well as artificial in the condifion of its existence.

At tlie same time it has to be remembered that while Wilkie Collins was a born storyteller (he never tired of telling stories) lie believed that it was the mission of the novelist to do more than amuse. With Dickens, Kingslev, and Charles Eeade he burned to redress wrong and reform abuse. "In 'Basil' he inveighed against the nurses of the Mrs Gamp type and the nonisolation of infectious cases in hospitals; in 'Heart and Science' he fell foul of vivisection; and in 'The Woman in White,' only incidentally, it is true, he laid bare the evils that may result from mad-house being in the hands of private people. In "Hide and Seek' he protested against the rigours of the Puritans' religion; in - 'No Name' against the law's non-recognition of illegitimate children; and in 'The NewMagdalen' and 'Fallen Leaves' against the way society regards erring women. In 'The Law and the Lady' he pointed out the disadvantages of the Scottish verdict of 'Not Proven' and in 'Man and Wife' emphasised the hideousness of the Scottish marriage laws. In this last-maned book he dwelt on the brutalising effect of an undue devotion .to athletics in a way that, for a long time, was regarded by most people as a protest against training and vigorous exercise generally.''

Wilkie Collins's first novel "Antonixia, or the Fall of Some," was written when he was under the influence of a strong boyish admiration for Bulwer Lytton. Ilis father, William Collins, the artist and friend of Sir David Wilkie. after whom the novelist was called, thought so highly of his son's literary effort that he allowed him to give up the tea trade to which he was apprenticed and go to the bar. On his father's death Wilkie Collins devoted himself to novel writing, his first book being published in 1850. In his later ygms his powers failed him, largely owin« to ill-health and the use of opiuoi] and it is suspected that in many of his novels his friends rendered him assistance. Sir Hall Caine describes a

(Continued at foot of nest column.)

visit paid to the novelist in 1888, a year berore his death: — We were sitting in Wilkio's workshop, with prooi3 of his current work everywhere shout ua. Wilkie was mucli ■worried. "Aly brain is not very clear," he eaid once or twice, taking a turn across the room. Presently and as if by a sudden impulse, he opened a cabinet and took out a wine. glass and what seemed to bo a bottle of .medicine. "I'm going to ahow you one of tho secrets of my prisonhouse," he said with a smile, and then he poured from tho bottle a full wine fVosa of a liquid resembling port wine. Do you see that?" hp asked "It's laudanum." And straightway ho diaife it oG. "Good heavens, Wilkie Collins!" I said, "how ISng iinve you taken that drug?" "Twenty years," he answered. "ilore than onco a day?" "Oh, yes, much more. Don't be alarmed Remember that Do Quinccy used to drink laudanum out of a jug." "Why do you take it?" I asked. "To stimulate tho brain and steady tho nervea."