Collins, the son of the landscape painter William Collins, studied law at Lincoln's Inn and was admitted to the bar in 1851. More interested in writing than the law, Collins published his first work, Memoirs of the Life of William Collins, Esq. (1848) in memory of his father who had died in 1847. His early works included Antonina, or the Fall of Rome (1850), Basil (1852) and Hide and Seek (1854). In 1855 he met Dickens which had a great influence on Collins' writing. In 1860, he published Woman in White, recognized as the first crime detection novel produced by an English author. He followed this with many successful novels including No Name (1862), Armadale (1866), The Moonstone (1868) and Man and Wife (1870). His writing deteriorated in later years due to his addiction to opium. |
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