In a literary career spanning over forty years, Wilkie Collins wrote over twenty novels, several plays, and numerous short stories. However, he is mainly remembered for his best-selling sensation novel The Woman in White. Irregular liasons, the chaotic state of the marriage laws, social and psychological identity, and the interconnections between respectable society and the world of crime are recurring themes in Collins's fiction. In this lively, accessible, and critically topical exploration of his novels, Lyn Pykett looks at Collins's long and varied career in relation to the changing circumstances of his own life, a changing literary marketplace, and the changing worlds of nineteenth-century Britain, as well as his enduring legacy for modern writers and interpreters.The volume includes a chronology of Collins's life and times, a comprehensive index, websites, illustrations, and suggestions for further reading.