The Dead Alive

by Wilkie Collins

Overview

The first idea of this little story was suggested to the author by a printed account of a trial which actually took place, early in the present century, in the United States... It may not be amiss to add, for the benefit of incredulous readers, that all the ''improbable events'' in the story are matters of fact, taken from the printed narrative. Anything which ''looks like truth'' is, in nine cases out of ten, the invention of the author.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781609774660
Publisher:	Start Classics
Publication date:	03/21/2014
Sold by:	SIMON & SCHUSTER
Format:	eBook
Pages:	65
File size:	353 KB

About the Author

William Wilkie Collins (8 January 1824 - 23 September 1889) was an English novelist, playwright, and short story writer. His best-known works are The Woman in White (1859), No Name (1862), Armadale (1866) and The Moonstone (1868). The last is considered the first modern English detective novel.

Born into the family of painter William Collins in London, he lived with his family in Italy and France as a child and learned French and Italian. He worked as a clerk for a tea merchant. After his first novel, Antonina, was published in 1850, he met Charles Dickens, who became a close friend, mentor and collaborator. Some of Collins's works were first published in Dickens' journals All the Year Round and Household Words and the two collaborated on drama and fiction.

Collins published his best known works in the 1860s and achieved financial stability and an international reputation. During that time he began suffering from gout. After taking opium for the pain, he developed an addiction. During the 1870s and 1880s the quality of his writing declined along with his health.

Date of Birth:

December 8, 1824

Date of Death:

September 23, 1889

Place of Birth:

London, England

Place of Death:

London, England

Education:

Studied law at Lincoln¿s Inn, London