Who would have thought I would need a NEWS section on a writer who died over a hundred years ago? Nevertheless, I do.
By the way, it's probably hardly news by now, but I was pleasantly suprised to find that the latest version of Microsoft Encarta lists this site as further reading for its (excellent) Wilkie Collins entry!
Susan Dara
(16 Aug 1998) wrote:[Susan previous wrote to me about her plans to set up a Wilkie Collins mailing list - DG][DG]: I recommend that Collins fans have a look at this list. As Susan says, it is easy and free to register.Well I did it. I set up the page, but Ihaven't started sending out messages about joining yet, but people can now join if they want. We know have a whopping 2 members, including me.
I set the account up with http://www.onelist.com this is a free service, b/c being a grad student i dont' have much money. Anyone can join the list, but they have to become a registered onelist user, that's free and no strings too. I found this because I joined a victoria list and Lewis Carroll list there. The site is called Wilkiecollins@onelist.com and it's filed under both new lists, Books | Authors or by doing a search for the list name. Registration is simple and many of the information areas are optional. Since this not a restricted list you do not need to supply last name or any info you do not wish to provide.
As you will see in the description I tried to make this as friendly as possible welcoming all book lovers and scholars. I love chatting with both b/c each sees different things in the work in question.
This is the Description of the list as it appears on onelist.
Wilkiecollins [English] [For People Over 17] Similar lists This list is for book lovers and scholars alike who would like to discuss and keep in touch with others who enjoy talking about Wilkie Collins, his life, works, and world. Wilkie Collins (1824-1889) wrote 25 novels, more than 50 short stories, at least 15 plays, and more than 100 pieces of journalism. His novels include The Woman In White and The Moonstone, considered by many to be the first full length detective novel in English. This list will not only be a place for scholars and enthusiasts to network, but also, if there is an interest, a cyber reading group of the works of Wilkie Collins allowing for the free exchange of ideas, impressions, and beliefs regarding the man and his era.
For more information, mailto:SusanDara@aol.com
Let me know if you have any questions
susan
Matthew Sweet
(26 Jun 1998) wrote:Dear David,[DG]: Thanks for writing. My comment about the Encarta entry was rather brief and off the cuff, but I meant it. Your entry is brief but full of accurate detail, and compares very well with the Brittanica entry, which is a good deal shorter and less interesting.As I'm the guy who wrote the Encarta entry on Wilkie, I just wanted to thank you for your approving comments.
I've just been commissioned to do a new edition of The Woman in White for Penguin Classics, so if I turn up anything unusual I shall keep you posted. I'm planning an appendix on the theatrical versions of the book...
Anyway, I'll keep in touch.
Regards,
Matthew Sweet
I'm also rather chuffed (this is an Australian expression, I think, meaning modestly pleased and flattered) that Encarta links to my web site on Collins. I started it simply as an interested reader of Collins' work, not as an academic, which I am not. It rather snowballed (as all things seem to do on the internet) and I started to get lots of email with information about Collins. It's amazing to me that I need to keep the "Latest News" section updated as often as I do!
James Rusk
(25 Jun 1998) wrote:I recently converted my version of "No Name" to Project Gutenberg specifications, and it is now posted as etext #1438.No Name, by Wilkie Collins [#6 by Wilkie Collins][nnamexxx.xxx]1438
As time permits I will probably convert more Collins texts; however, my web site will continue to provide the html versions.
James Rusk
(23 Jun 1998) wrote:Wilkie Collins' novel "The Black Robe" is now available at http://www.cyberramp.net/~jrusk/br/brttl.htmAs usual, please let me know if you see any errors.
James
Tom Hughes
(16 Apr 1998) wrote:I must say I was extremely disappointed in the latest BBC dramatization of Collins' Women in White.[DG]: I asked Tom immediately if he knew more about the proposed film of "Basil", and this is his reply:From the blatantly mis-dated references to Rosetti's retrieving his poems from Lizzie Siddal's coffin to the re-naming of Marian's character to the raising of the pseudo-modern issue of child abuse - I wondered why they just didn't re-write the whole thing.
Simon Callow is a wonderful actor but I felt he was miscast as Fosco but Fosco was so minimised anyway - it hardly mattered. By trying to cram as much in - and adding in extraneous material as well - the film missed the whole slow and subtle building of the tension at Blackwater that the novel so skillfully develops.
I am looking forward to Basil ... starring Christian Slater. I find Basil to be my favorite in the Collins canon and I hope Hollywood doesn't feel the need to "adapt" the story out of all recognition to the author's original classic.
Thank you. Tom Hughes Atlanta, GA
tomnughes@aol.com
Greetings ... Of all places - I heard about "Basil" being made into a film on Entertainment Tonight.All I know about is that it stars Christian Slater. I can't even tell you whether it is planned for theatre release or made for television. Wish I could be more helpful.
Tom.
E-Text of Little Novels
(28 Feb 1998) wrote:"Little Novels" is finished. The url for the entire book is:http://www.freespeech.org/wcollins/little.htm
Here are the url's of the recently added stories:
Miss Bertha and the Yankee
http://www.freespeech.org/wcollins/bert/bertttl.htmMrs. Zant and the Ghost
http://www.freespeech.org/wcollins/zant/zantttl.htmMr. Policeman and the Cook
http://www.freespeech.org/wcollins/cook/cookttl.htmMiss Morris and the Stranger
http://www.freespeech.org/wcollins/morr/morrttl.htmMr. Lismore and the Widow
http://www.freespeech.org/wcollins/lism/lismttl.htmMiss Dulane and My Lord
http://www.freespeech.org/wcollins/lane/lanettl.htmAs usual, please report errors to jrusk@cyberramp.net.
James
E-Text of The Two Destinies
(06 Feb 1998) wrote:Wilkie Collins' "The Two Destinies" is now available at:http://www.freespeech.org/wcollins/two/two_ttl.htm
This weekend I will be putting the reference for "The Two Destinies" on my opening screen, and cleaning up the table of contents page for the novel. However, no urls will change.
Future projects include:
Wilkie Collins, After Dark
Wilkie Collins, Little Novels
Charles Reade, Hard Cash
New Collins Web Site, New Book
(22 Jan 1998) wrote:Just to let you know that I have now begun to set up some web pages at:
http://www.gasson.demon.co.uk
I have put a link to your own site. 'Wilkie Collins - an Illustrated Guide' is due to be published by Oxford University Press at the end of February.
Regards,
Andrew Gasson
New BBC Version of "Woman in White"
(17 Dec 1997) wrote:I have just be looking through your 'Wilkie Collins Appreciation Page' and noted that there were several remarks about the BBC adaptation of The Moonstone. I therefore thought that you might like to know that the BBC has produced a 2 hour version of The Woman in White. It is due to be shown on the BBC in two parts on the 28 & 29 of December. Tara Fizgerald plays Marian, James Wilby plays Sir Percival Glyde and Simon Callow plays Count Fosco. It has been co-produced by an American company (from Boston ?) so it will probably be shown in America.[DG] Thanks for the information.
I hope this is of interest.
Your sincierly
Mr D P Walker (United Kingdom)
Collins' Works Available in 1910
(24 Jun 1997) wrote:Hi, David: I thought some of your readers might be interested in this:I'm working on the etext version of Charles Reade's "The Cloister and the Hearth," using the 1910 Chatto & Windus edition. The endpapers list the books C & W offered in 1910.
All of Wilkie Collins' works were still in print in 1910. The description is: "COLLINS (WILKIE), Novels by. Cr. 8vo, cl., 3s 6d each; post 8vo, picture boards, 2s each; cl. limp. 2s, 6d each.
All the novels from "Antonia" to "Blind Love" are listed, along with "My Miscellanies" and his short story collections.
"Popular" editions at only 6d each were available for Antonia, Poor Miss Finch, The Woman in White, The Law and the Lady, Moonstone, The New Magdalen, The Dead Secret, No Name, Man and Wife, Armadale, The Haunted Hotel, and Blind Love.
Large type editions were available for The Woman in White and The Frozen Deep.
This list is evidence that over 20 years after his death, Collins was still a much-read novelist.
Discovery of Autographed Collins Book
(08 Apr 1997) wrote:I thought this might be of some interest to Wilkie fans...I am attending graduate school here in Austin Texas, and was rummaging through the Collins collection here and came across some rather interesting finds.First of all, we have here a first edition Poor Miss Finch, 3 vol, and the first volume is autographed, "To Mrs. Graves from Wilkie Collins 1873."
I about dropped out of my seat when I read that. "It couldn't possibly have been THE Mrs. Graves?" I thought to myself, but then found, in another first edition, Man and Wife, on the half-title of the first volume, "To Mrs. George Graves from Wilkie Collins, Oct. 1870." and finally in "Fallen Leaves", 1st edition, "To Caroline. 1879."
This is undoubtable a reference to Caroline Graves, Collins' longtime mistress. I found out later that these books came from a collection my university had purchased, the Wolff Collection, when Robert Lee Wolff had died, a man who had made it his mission to collect every piece of fiction published by any British writer during Victoria's reign. He only partially succeded in that, but certainly managed to acquire a huge number of amazing finds like these! Crazy what you find down here in the desert!
louis niebur
cloisterb@aol.com
Wilkie Collins E-Mail News List
(09 Feb 1997) wrote:WILKIE COLLINS E-MAIL NEWS LIST
Over the last year I have built up a list of nearly 100 people who have expressed an interest, one way or another, in Wilkie Collins. So I thought it was time to suggest bringing us all together in an e-mail group. At the moment I am not suggesting a fully functioning mailing list - such as the Victoria List or the Dickens List - partly through lack of resources and partly because we may not have enough people - yet. But eventually that would be the goal.
What I am proposing meanwhile is to act as an information exchange on Wilkie Collins. I will send e-mail messages to everyone on the list when there is news of Wilkie Collins - there is a lot coming up in the next year or so. And people on the list will send me information or questions about Collins which I will pass on to everyone.
The content will be anything to do with Collins - news of Collins studies, work people are doing on Collins, new publications by or about Collins, manuscripts or letters by Collins, new information about Collins, questions about Collins, bibliographic information about his writing, comments on his books, or just expressing views or raising points of interest about him or his work.
Please tell me if you are interested - or specifically not interested - in being on a such a list and if you have any information or questions to start it off.
I hope to send out the first information in the next week or so but I currently have a software problem with the mailing list which means everything has to be emailed individually so I will have to get that sorted out first.
It would help me to sort out my e-mail if you put WL at the start of the subject field whenever you write for or about the list.
Paul Lewis. mailto:paul@deadline.demon.co.uk
http://www.deadline.demon.co.uk
BBC Series of The Moonstone Update
(21 Jan 1997) wrote:I recently got a request for an update on what I learned about the BBC [television] series [of The Moonstone], so this is what I found out...It aired on the BBC over the holidays as a two-part series. I'm not clear whether this means as a 4 hour or 2 hour series...most likely 4 hours. A very kind woman in London gave me her personal review, and for the most part she liked it, although she found some of the characterisation lacking. I don't find this hard to believe, because while the book is brilliantly plotted, it lacks (IMHO) the depth of character present is books like No Name or Armadale. Anyway, it is quite lavish, and is set to be released on video (in PAL format...not compatible with American machines) soon, but no word still on it's US debut. Interestingly enough, I have heard it stars Paul McGann (the new Dr Who.)Sort of related, she also informed me of a radio production by the BBC last year of No Name, and if you have ever heard any of their radio plays, you know that they are quite impressive. I have e-mailed the radio department of the BBC for a cataloge of back programmes to check on its availablility, so I will let you know...
-- Louis Niebur (CloisterB@aol.com)
New Wilkie Collins Web Site
(31 Dec 1996) wrote:I'd like to announce a new Wilkie Collins site on the internet:
http://www.why.net/home/jrusk/collins/contents.html
or
http://users.why.net/jrusk/collins/contents.html
This site is devoted to html versions of Collins' works. Besides the books and short stories listed, The Woman in White will be added in a few days. Later in 1997 I will release No Name and The Queen of Hearts.
Please check out the url.
James Rusk jrusk@tenet.edu
BBC Series of The Moonstone
(13 Dec 1996) wrote:Just browsing through your brilliant Wilkie Collins page, and wondered if you have heard anything about this major new Moonstone that is in production at the BBC.
I first heard about it last summer, and for some reason expect it to air here in the States sometime this spring...have you heard anything? From what I remember it is supposed to be quite a production, one of their few "big" serials of the year. I don't think I was imagining it, but of course, it could have just been a rumor...
Louis Niebur CloisterB@aol.com
Non-Fiction by Collins on Web Site
(22 Nov 1996) wrote:My Wilkie Collins pages now include a section where I will be making available the text of work by Collins which has not been published since his death. Most of this is non-fiction.
The first item is now available and you can find it by following the links from
http://www.deadline.demon.co.uk/wilkie/wilkie.htm
I am told that access is sometimes very slow and can give an error message. But please persist, it is there!
CD-ROM Bibliography of Victorian Studies
Dr. Brahma Chaudhuri of the University of Alberta, Canada
I am pleased to announce a CD-ROM version of our bibliography of Victorian Studies, Victorian Database on CD-ROM. Interdisciplinary in scope, the database contains 26 years of bibliographical information on about 61,000+ publications from 500+ journals on every aspect of the Victorian period: General History, Local History, Biographies, Geography & Travel; Histories of Wales, Scotland, and Ireland; Military & Naval History; Colonial Histories of Australia, Canada, India, New Zealand, South Africa, and other countries; History of Economics, Political Science, Sociology, Women's Studies, Law, and Education; Science, Technology, and Medicine; Literature - Drama, Poetry, Prose, and Fiction.[DG] I hope to review this CD-ROM for these pages.
Translation of Collins' Work into French
(01 Jul 1996) wrote:I want to keep you informed (so that you might include this in your bibliography) that the first volume of Collins's complete works in French (including the Moonstone, The Dead Secret and The Woman in White) will be published in October by the Editions du Masque (a division of Hachette, Paris, France).[DG] Later advice (Jan '97) from Delphine indicates that the book was indeed published late last year
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This page is maintained by David R Grigg (). Last modified on 07 Jan 2000.