Other Fiction Collins, Wilkie: The Queen of Hearts (illustrated) v3. 8 Mar 2015

[AlexBell]

Wilkie Collins lived in London from 1824 to 1889, a period in which 'the inevitable self-assertion of wealth, so amiably deplored by the prosperous and the rich; [was] so bitterly familiar to the unfortunate and the poor.'

He was short, plump, and short sighted; a traveller, bon vivant, journalist, satirist, essayist, novelist, dramatist, and social activist despite his severe suffering from recurrent gout. He became addicted to laudanum, and several of his characters praise it.

One of his characters says '... isn't it the original intention or purpose ... of a work of fiction, to set out distinctly by telling a story? ... What I want is something that seizes hold of my interest ... something that keeps me reading, reading, reading, in a breathless state to find out the end.'


The Queen of Hearts was published in 1859, and is a story in its own right, split into two parts (which I have called Prelude and Finale) telling of the visit of a young woman to her three elderly uncles. They entice her to stay longer with them by telling stories from their experience over ten nights, and that keeps her with them until her cousin can get home from the Crimea to propose to her.

The ten stories had been published separately over the previous five years or so. Their plots include adventure, detective, ghost, and sensational stories, and social commentary.

Several are told first hand by 'a person in the lower rank of life,' and show Collins' sympathy for the poor and needy.

The source text was Project Gutenberg 1917-h.htm. I have corrected typos, curled quotes, and modernised punctuation, spelling, and hyphenation using oxforddictionaries.com.

As always if you find any errors please let me know so I can correct them.

Edit: Version 2 22 July 2014 changes one word in the original, and corrects a type in the toc.ncx file.

Edit: 8 March 2015. Version 3 uploaded - extensive changes to layout, no change in original text

This work is assumed to be in the Life+70 public domain OR the copyright holder has given specific permission for distribution. Copyright laws differ throughout the world, and it may still be under copyright in some countries. Before downloading, please check your country's copyright laws. If the book is under copyright in your country, do not download or redistribute this work.

To report a copyright violation you can contact us here.

[AlexBell]

Version 2 changes one word back to the original, and corrects a typo in the toc.ncx file.

[AlexBell]

Version 2 had 52 views. Version 3 has extensive changes to layout, no changes to PD text