After Dark
by Wilkie Collins /
2014 / English / EPUB
1.1 MB Download
Wilkie Collins wrote this collection of six short stories in 1859, three years before he would pen his first masterpiece, 'The Woman in White.'
*'The Traveller's Story of A Terribly Strange Bed' was originally published on 24 April 1852 as Collins's first contribution to Household Words.
'The Lawyer's Story of A Stolen Letter' is an early detective story, probably influenced by Edgar Allan Poe's 'The Purloined Letter'. It was originally published with the title 'The Fourth Poor Traveller' in 'The Seven Poor Travellers', the Extra Christmas Number of Household Words for December 1854. The narrator is a lawyer who contrives, in a series of ingenious moves, to steal back an incriminating letter from a blackmailer. The letter contains a confession to an attempted forgery by the dead father of a poor young governess, Miss Smith. The lawyer's success enables her marriage to a rich young man, Frank Gatliffe, to take place without the threat of scandal.
'The French Governess's Story of Sister Rose' is a long short story originally published in Household Words 7-28 April 1855. There is an added Prologue included in this version for After Dark. The first separate publication was a pirated edition by Petersons of Philadelphia in 1855 where it was wrongly attributed to Dickens.
