Other editions of book After Dark

The stories are linked by a narrative framework.At the beginning and end of the book are "Leaves from Leah's Diary" William Kerby, a travelling portrait-painter, is in danger of losing his sight, and is required by his doctor to cease painting for a while. His wife Leah realizes that destitution threatens. He is a good story-teller, and Leah has the idea of writing down his stories and publishing them.Each story has a prologue, which was added to the original story that appeared in Household Words.

Wikie Collin's "After Dark" is a collection of six short stories. The book is a series of tales told by a poor travelling portrait-painter, William Kerby, who is forced to abandon his profession for six months in order to save his sight. The tales are stories of adventure, well varied, and often striking in the incidents, or with thrilling situations. The six stories contained in the book are: The Traveller's Story of A Terribly Strange Bed The Lawyer's Story of A Stolen Letter The French Governess's Story of Sister Rose The Angler's Story of The Lady of Glenwith Grange The Nun's Story of Gabriel's Marriage The Professor's Story of The Yellow Mask.

After Dark is a collection of six short stories by Wilkie Collins, first published in 1856. It was the author's first collection of short stories. Five of the stories were previously published in Household Words, a magazine edited by Charles Dickens. The stories are linked by a narrative framework. At the beginning and end of the book are "Leaves from Leah's Diary": William Kerby, a travelling portrait-painter, is in danger of losing his sight, and is required by his doctor to cease painting for a while. His wife Leah realizes that destitution threatens. He is a good story-teller, and Leah has the idea of writing down his stories and publishing them. Each story has a prologue, which was added to the original story that appeared in Household Words. Contents: "The Traveller's Story of a Terribly Strange Bed", first published as "A Terribly Strange Bed" in Household Words in 1852. "The Lawyer's Story of a Stolen Letter", first published as "The Fourth Poor Traveller" in "The Seven Poor Travellers", a group of stories by several authors in the Christmas 1854 edition of Household Words. "The French Governess's Story of Sister Rose", first published as "Sister Rose" in Household Words in April 1855. "The Angler's Story of the Lady of Glenwith Grange", first published in this volume. "The Nun's Story of Gabriel's Marriage", first published as "Gabriel's Marriage" in Household Words in April 1853. "The Professor's Story of the Yellow Mask", first published as "The Yellow Mask" in Household Words in July 1855. 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, 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. Collins was critical of the institution of marriage and never married; he split his time between Caroline Graves, except for a two-year separation, and his common-law wife Martha Rudd, with whom he had three children. Collins died at 82 Wimpole Street, following a paralytic stroke. He is buried in Kensal Green Cemetery, West London. His headstone describes him as the author of The Woman in White.Caroline Graves died in 1895 and was buried with Collins. Martha Rudd died in 1919.

This is a pre-1923 historical reproduction that was curated for quality. Quality assurance was conducted on each of these books in an attempt to remove books with imperfections introduced by the digitization process. Though we have made best efforts - the books may have occasional errors that do not impede the reading experience. We believe this work is culturally important and have elected to bring the book back into print as part of our continuing commitment to the preservation of printed works worldwide.

After Dark, by Wilkie Collins, presents a series of detective stories supposed to be told to a portrait-painter by his sitters; the framework tells us how he came to think of publishing the stories thus collected; the introductions describe the circumstances under which the tales were told. These portions have a delicate every-day interest. The tales are stories of adventure, well varied, and often striking in the incidents, or with thrilling situations; and are as pleasant reading as a novel reader could desire.

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"I must also gratefully acknowledge an obligation of another kind to the accomplished artist, Mr. W. S. Herrick, to whom I am indebted for the curious and interesting facts on which the tales of 'The Terribly Strange Bed' and 'The Yellow Mask' are founded. Although the statement may appear somewhat superfluous to those who know me, it may not be out of place to add, in conclusion, that these stories are entirely of my own imagining, constructing, and writing. The fact that the events of some of my tales occur on foreign ground, and are acted out by foreign personages, appears to have suggested in some quarters the inference that the stories themselves might be of foreign origin. Let me, once for all, assure any readers who may honor me with their attention, that in this, and in all other cases, they may depend on the genuineness of my literary offspring. The little children of my brain may be weakly enough, and may be sadly in want of a helping hand to aid them in their first attempts at walking on the stage of this great world; but, at any rate, they are not borrowed children. The members of my own literary family are indeed increasing so fast as to render the very idea of borrowing quite out of the question, and to suggest serious apprehension that I may not have done adding to the large book-population, on my own sole responsibility, even yet." -- Wilkie Collins