Armadale (Penguin Classics)

Name: Armadale (Penguin Classics)
Rating: 3.25 (4 reviews)
Author: Wilkie Collins
ISBN: 9780140434118

by Wilkie Collins, John Sutherland

3.3

(4 ratings)

721 pages1866Penguin ClassicsISBN 9780140434118

Literature Mystery Fiction Classics

About this book

When the elderly Allan Armadale makes a terrible confession on his death-bed, he has little idea of the repercussions to come, for the secret he reveals involves the mysterious Lydia Gwilt: flame-haired temptress, bigamist, laudanum addict and husband-poisoner. Her malicious intrigues fuel the plot of this gripping melodrama: a tale of confused identities, inherited curses, romantic rivalries, espionage, money—and murder. The character of Lydia Gwilt horrified contemporary critics, with one reviewer describing her as "One of the most hardened female villains whose devices and desires have ever blackened fiction." She remains among the most enigmatic and fascinating women in nineteenth-century literature and the dark heart of this most sensational of Victorian "sensation novels." For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.

Publication Details

Publisher: Penguin Classics
Published: 1866
Pages: 721
ISBN: 9780140434118
Language: en

About Wilkie Collins

William Wilkie Collins (8 January 1824 – 23 September 1889) was an English novelist, playwright and short story writer best known for *The Woman in White* (1859) and *The Moonstone* (1868). The last has been called the first modern English detective novel. Born to the family of a painter, William Collins, in London, he grew up in Italy and France, learning French and Italian. He began work as a clerk for a tea merchant. After his first novel, Antonina, appeared in 1850, he met Charles Dickens, who became a close friend and mentor. Some of Collins's works appeared first in Dickens's journals *All the Year Round* and *Household Words* and they collaborated on drama and fiction. Collins achieved financial stability and an international following with his best known works in the 1860s, but began suffering from gout. Taking opium for the pain grew into an addiction. In the 1870s and 1880s his writing quality declined with his health. Collins was critical of the institution of marriage: he split his time between Caroline Graves and his common-law wife Martha Rudd, with whom he had three children. **Source**: [Wilkie Collins](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilkie_Collins) on Wikipedia.