On this day in 1824, the Victorian mystery novelist Wilkie Collins was born. Though many of Collins's twenty-five novels are now little-read, his "gaslight thrillers" were once very popular, and two -- The Woman in White (1860) and The Moonstone (1868) -- have not only stayed in print but grown in reputation. Critics and historians view Collins as a master of suspense and the first in English crime fiction to bring psychological depth and literary flair to tales so sensational and lurid that they would otherwise belong to the crime tabloids. Collins attributed his popularity to the old adage, 'make 'em laugh, make 'em cry, make 'em wait,' which he said he borrowed from the music hall, though it might just as easily have come from his good friend Charles Dickens ... FULL STORY »
