Book description
WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY AUDREY NIFFENEGGER
When Rachel Verinder receives a gift of an astonishing yellow
diamond from her bitter old uncle for her eighteenth birthday, she has
no idea that the stone brings great danger with it. When the diamond
goes missing during the night the ensuing investigations gradually
bring to light the sinister history of the jewel and the passions and
plots of those close to Rachel.
Wilkie Collins was born in London on 8 January 1824. His father was
the landscape painter William Collins. After school he worked for a tea
merchant before studying to become a lawyer. In 1848 he published a
biography of his father and his first novel,
Antonina
, followed in 1850. In 1851 he met Charles Dickens who would later edit
and publish some of his novels. Collins's novels were extremely popular
in his own time as well as now.
The Woman in White (
1859),
No Name
(1862),
Armadale
(1866) and
The Moonstone
(1868) are his best known works. Collins was linked with two women (one
of whom bore him three children) but he never married. He died on 23
September 1889.
