{"product_id":"wilkie-collins","title":"Peter Ackroyd: Wilkie Collins [2012] hardback","description":"\u003cp\u003eShort and oddly built, with a head too big for his body, extremely short-sighted, unable to stay still, dressed in colourful clothes, 'as if playing a certain part in the great general drama of life', Wilkie Collins looked distinctly strange. But he was none the less a charmer, befriended by the great, loved by children, irresistibly attractive to women -- and avidly read by generations of readers. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAckroyd follows his hero, 'the sweetest-tempered of all the Victorian novelists', from his childhood as the son of a well-known artist to his struggling beginnings as a writer, his years of fame and his life-long friendship with the other great London chronicler, Charles Dickens. A true Londoner, Collins, like Dickens, was fascinated by the secrets and crimes -- the fraud, blackmail and poisonings -- that lay hidden behind the city's respectable facade. He was a fighter, never afraid to point out injustices and shams , or to tackle the establishment head on. As well as his enduring masterpieces, \u003ci\u003eThe Moonstone\u003c\/i\u003e -- often called the first true detective novel -- and the sensational \u003ci\u003eThe Woman in White\u003c\/i\u003e, he produced an intriguing array of lesser known works.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eCollins had his own secrets: he never married, but lived for thirty years with the widowed Caroline Graves, and also had a second liaison, as 'Mr and Mrs Dawson', with a younger mistress, Martha Rudd, with whom he had three children. Both women remained devoted  as illness and opium-taking took their toll: he died in 1889, in the middle of writing his last novel, \u003ci\u003eBlind Love\u003c\/i\u003e. Told with Peter Ackroyd's inimitable verve this is a ravishingly entertaining life of a great story-teller, full of surprises, rich in humour and sympathetic understanding.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Ackroyd, Peter","offers":[{"title":"Very Good","offer_id":48662696329555,"sku":"XV80701169909","price":7.99,"currency_code":"EUR","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0616\/4001\/6057\/files\/ackroyd-peter-wilkie-collins-xv80701169909-56048993665363.jpg?v=1726409107","url":"https:\/\/theirishbookshop.live\/products\/wilkie-collins","provider":"Chapters Bookstore","version":"1.0","type":"link"}