Wilkie Collins

A Fair Penitent Wilkie Collins

Marc Notes: Title from PDF title page (viewed on Sept. 11, 2012).; First published in 1857--T.p. verso.; Delve into the seamy underside of eighteenth-century Paris in this gripping short story from beloved British author Wilkie Collins. The fair penitent of the title is a renowned stage actress who decides to give up her life of cultural refinement and cushy creature comforts to seek out a more spiritually fulfilling path. Will she find a way to make things right and repent?; EBSCO complete collection. Publisher Marketing: Delve into the seamy underside of eighteenth-century Paris in this gripping short story from beloved British author Wilkie Collins. The fair penitent of the title is a renowned stage actress who decides to give up her life of cultural refinement and cushy creature comforts to seek out a more spiritually fulfilling path. Will she find a way to make things right and repent? Contributor Bio:  Collins, Wilkie English novelist and playwright Wilkie Collins was a prolific writer with a body of work comprising thirty novels, over sixty short stories, more than a dozen plays, and a wide range of non-fiction pieces. Collins is best known for his novels The Woman in White, an early sensation novel--a genre combining shocking gothic horror with everyday domestic settings--and The Moonstone, which is credited as one of the first modern mystery novels. In the 1850s Collins met Charles Dickens and the two struck up a friendship, which lead to Collins becoming a frequent contributor to Dickens's journals Household Words and All the Year Round. Many of his stories have been adapted for film, including Basil, A Terribly Strange Bed, The Moonstone and The Woman in White. Collins died in 1889 at the age of 65.