Changes

|title=Wilkie Collins: A Life of Sensation

|author=Andrew Lycett

|publisher=Windmill

|date=April 2014

|website=http://www.andrewlycett.co.uk/

|summary=A very full biography of Wilkie Collins, master of the Victorian 'sensation' novel and a man who was later remembered particularly for his unconventional life which he shared with two mistresses.

}}

Wilkie Collins has come down to us as the chief exponent of the Victorian ‘sensation novel’. This was the genre of story written specifically to expose deep-rooted domestic or family secrets, uncovering illegitimacy, bigamy or other irregular activities by supposedly respectable citizens leading outwardly normal, uneventful lives. There were mysteries, deceptions, betrayals, evil characters and good innocent ones. Measured by these standards, he led a ‘sensational’ life himself. When not writing novels, short stories, plays or articles for journals in order to earn a living, this apparently fine upstanding bachelor maintained two households, two mistresses, and children at the same time – and managed to keep them a secret from the public who would doubtless have been scandalized to know the truth.