Read Complete Works of Wilkie Collins Online
Authors: Wilkie Collins
Complete Works of Wilkie Collins (692 page)
This novel was first published in 1870 and dedicated to Frederick and Nina Lehmann with whom Collins stayed during much of its composition.
Their surname, thinly disguised, and their musical abilities on the violin and piano appear in the characters of Julius Delamayn and his wife.
Often cited as Collins’ first didactic work,
Man and Wife
attacks both Irish and Scottish marriage laws as well as arguing the case for a Married Woman’s Property Act.
The novel also campaigns against the cult of athleticism, as leading to moral and physical corruption, personified in the villain, Geoffrey Delamayn.
Contemporary reviewers generally praised the excitement and cleverness of the plot, though many failed to appreciate Collins’ higher motives.
The 1870 title page
MAN AND WIFE
CONTENTS
PROLOGUE. — THE IRISH MARRIAGE.
PROLOGUE. — THE IRISH MARRIAGE.
THE VILLA AT HAMPSTEAD.
I.
ON a summer’s morning, between thirty and forty years ago, two girls were crying bitterly in the cabin of an East Indian passenger ship, bound outward, from Gravesend to Bombay.
They were both of the same age — eighteen. They had both, from childhood upward, been close and dear friends at the same school. They were now parting for the first time — and parting, it might be, for life.
The name of one was Blanche. The name of the other was Anne.
Both were the children of poor parents, both had been pupil-teachers at the school; and both were destined to earn their own bread. Personally speaking, and socially speaking, these were the only points of resemblance between them.
Blanche was passably attractive and passably intelligent, and no more. Anne was rarely beautiful and rarely endowed. Blanche’s parents were worthy people, whose first consideration was to secure, at any sacrifice, the future well-being of their child. Anne’s parents were heartless and depraved. Their one idea, in connection with their daughter, was to speculate on her beauty, and to turn her abilities to profitable account.
The girls were starting in life under widely different conditions. Blanche was going to India, to be governess in the household of a Judge, under care of the Judge’s wife. Anne was to wait at home until the first opportunity offered of sending her cheaply to Milan. There, among strangers, she was to be perfected in the actress’s and the singer’s art; then to return to England, and make the fortune of her family on the lyric stage.