Other editions of book No Name

The story begins in 1846, at Combe-Raven in West Somersetshire, the country residence of the happy Vanstone family. The first scene is a wonderfully dramatic legal thriller. The reader is introduced to Mr Andrew Vanstone, Mrs. Vanstone and their two daughters Norah, age 26, happy and quiet, and the irrepressible Magdalen, just 18, beautiful but with a steely jaw. They live in peace and contentment, looked after by their governess, Miss Garth. Magdalen likes nothing better than to read at her window while her personal maid combs through and through her long hair. “Private theatricals!” is the cry as she signs up for a performance of Sheridan’s “The Rivals”. She finds herself a talented actress and falls in love with Frank Clare, the good for nothing but handsome son of a neighbor, whom she entices into the play. They are to be married, their fathers agree, and then the bottom drops out of their world. Mr. Vanstone is killed in a local train crash, and Mrs Vanstone dies in childbirth. The girls discover from the lawyer Mr. Pendril that their parents have only been married a few months and the wedding invalidated their will (which left everything to the daughters). The daughters have no name, no rights, no property and the entire family fortune is inherited by an older brother Michael Vanstone who has been estranged from the family for many years. With the help only of their loyal governess Miss Garth, the two girls set out to make their own way in the world.From the second scene onwards, the character of the novel completely changes. It becomes comic as the confidence tricksters try to outdo each other. This scene is in York, where Magdalen enlists the help of Captain Wragge, a distant relative of her mother’s and a professional swindler. He helps get Magdalen started on the stage in return for a share of the proceeds. His wife Matilda, a huge clown of a lady, has to be kept in check. Her head is full of recipes and dressmaking.Scene three is in Vauxhall Walk, Lambeth. Magdalen, having earned some money, forsakes the stage and plots to get her inheritance back. Michael Vanstone has died and his only son, Noel Vanstone is sickly and looked after by his housekeeper, Virginie Lecount, a shrewd woman who hopes to inherit his money. Magdalen goes to Lambeth disguised as Miss Garth to see how the land lies, but Mrs Lecount sees through her disguise and cuts a bit of cloth from the hem of her brown alpaca dress as a keepsake.Scene four is in Aldborough, Suffolk, where Magdalen tries to carry out her plot to regain her inheritance by marrying Noel Vanstone under an assumed name, with Captain and Mrs Wragge posing as her uncle and aunt. Wragge and Lecount plot and plot in their attempts to outdo each other. In the end, Lecount is sent on a false errand to Zurich, and Magdalen and Noel are married. Captain Wragge arranges the marriage on condition that he will never have to see Magdalen again once it has happened.Scene five is in Balliol Cottage, Dumfries. Noel is alone, as his wife has left to visit her sister Norah in London. Mrs Lecount is back from Zurich and explains who his wife really is, with the help of the cut bit of cloth from the brown placa dress. Noel at her direction rewrites his will, cutting off his wife and leaving a legacy to Lecount and everything else to Admiral Bartram his cousin. He encloses a secret letter, asking Admiral Bartram that the money be passed to young George Bartram, but only on the condition that he marry someone not a widow within six months, thus ensuring that Magdalen cannot marry George for the money. The strain of this scheming is all too much and he dies from a weak heart.Scene six is St John's Wood where Magdalen has lodgings. Estranged from Norah and from Miss Garth, who she thinks betrayed her husband’s whereabouts to Lecount, she hatches a crazy plot to disguise herself as a maid and infiltrate herself into Admiral Bartram’s house to look for the Secret Trust document. Biography

The story begins in 1846, at Combe-Raven in West Somersetshire, the country residence of the happy Vanstone family. The first scene is a wonderfully dramatic legal thriller. The reader is introduced to Mr Andrew Vanstone, Mrs. Vanstone and their two daughters Norah, age 26, happy and quiet, and the irrepressible Magdalen, just 18, beautiful but with a steely jaw. They live in peace and contentment, looked after by their governess, Miss Garth. Magdalen likes nothing better than to read at her window while her personal maid combs through and through her long hair. “Private theatricals!” is the cry as she signs up for a performance of Sheridan’s “The Rivals”. She finds herself a talented actress and falls in love with Frank Clare, the good for nothing but handsome son of a neighbor, whom she entices into the play. They are to be married, their fathers agree, and then the bottom drops out of their world. Mr. Vanstone is killed in a local train crash, and Mrs Vanstone dies in childbirth. The girls discover from the lawyer Mr. Pendril that their parents have only been married a few months and the wedding invalidated their will (which left everything to the daughters). The daughters have no name, no rights, no property and the entire family fortune is inherited by an older brother Michael Vanstone who has been estranged from the family for many years. With the help only of their loyal governess Miss Garth, the two girls set out to make their own way in the world.From the second scene onwards, the character of the novel completely changes. It becomes comic as the confidence tricksters try to outdo each other. This scene is in York, where Magdalen enlists the help of Captain Wragge, a distant relative of her mother’s and a professional swindler. He helps get Magdalen started on the stage in return for a share of the proceeds. His wife Matilda, a huge clown of a lady, has to be kept in check. Her head is full of recipes and dressmaking.Scene three is in Vauxhall Walk, Lambeth. Magdalen, having earned some money, forsakes the stage and plots to get her inheritance back. Michael Vanstone has died and his only son, Noel Vanstone is sickly and looked after by his housekeeper, Virginie Lecount, a shrewd woman who hopes to inherit his money. Magdalen goes to Lambeth disguised as Miss Garth to see how the land lies, but Mrs Lecount sees through her disguise and cuts a bit of cloth from the hem of her brown alpaca dress as a keepsake.Scene four is in Aldborough, Suffolk, where Magdalen tries to carry out her plot to regain her inheritance by marrying Noel Vanstone under an assumed name, with Captain and Mrs Wragge posing as her uncle and aunt. Wragge and Lecount plot and plot in their attempts to outdo each other. In the end, Lecount is sent on a false errand to Zurich, and Magdalen and Noel are married. Captain Wragge arranges the marriage on condition that he will never have to see Magdalen again once it has happened.Scene five is in Balliol Cottage, Dumfries. Noel is alone, as his wife has left to visit her sister Norah in London. Mrs Lecount is back from Zurich and explains who his wife really is, with the help of the cut bit of cloth from the brown placa dress. Noel at her direction rewrites his will, cutting off his wife and leaving a legacy to Lecount and everything else to Admiral Bartram his cousin. He encloses a secret letter, asking Admiral Bartram that the money be passed to young George Bartram, but only on the condition that he marry someone not a widow within six months, thus ensuring that Magdalen cannot marry George for the money. The strain of this scheming is all too much and he dies from a weak heart.Scene six is St John's Wood where Magdalen has lodgings. Estranged from Norah and from Miss Garth, who she thinks betrayed her husband’s whereabouts to Lecount, she hatches a crazy plot to disguise herself as a maid and infiltrate herself into Admiral Bartram’s house to look for the Secret Trust document. Biography

The story begins in 1846, at Combe-Raven in West Somersetshire, the country residence of the happy Vanstone family. The first scene is a wonderfully dramatic legal thriller. The reader is introduced to Mr Andrew Vanstone, Mrs. Vanstone and their two daughters Norah, age 26, happy and quiet, and the irrepressible Magdalen, just 18, beautiful but with a steely jaw. They live in peace and contentment, looked after by their governess, Miss Garth. Magdalen likes nothing better than to read at her window while her personal maid combs through and through her long hair. “Private theatricals!” is the cry as she signs up for a performance of Sheridan’s “The Rivals”. She finds herself a talented actress and falls in love with Frank Clare, the good for nothing but handsome son of a neighbor, whom she entices into the play. They are to be married, their fathers agree, and then the bottom drops out of their world. Mr. Vanstone is killed in a local train crash, and Mrs Vanstone dies in childbirth. The girls discover from the lawyer Mr. Pendril that their parents have only been married a few months and the wedding invalidated their will (which left everything to the daughters). The daughters have no name, no rights, no property and the entire family fortune is inherited by an older brother Michael Vanstone who has been estranged from the family for many years. With the help only of their loyal governess Miss Garth, the two girls set out to make their own way in the world.From the second scene onwards, the character of the novel completely changes. It becomes comic as the confidence tricksters try to outdo each other. This scene is in York, where Magdalen enlists the help of Captain Wragge, a distant relative of her mother’s and a professional swindler. He helps get Magdalen started on the stage in return for a share of the proceeds. His wife Matilda, a huge clown of a lady, has to be kept in check. Her head is full of recipes and dressmaking.Scene three is in Vauxhall Walk, Lambeth. Magdalen, having earned some money, forsakes the stage and plots to get her inheritance back. Michael Vanstone has died and his only son, Noel Vanstone is sickly and looked after by his housekeeper, Virginie Lecount, a shrewd woman who hopes to inherit his money. Magdalen goes to Lambeth disguised as Miss Garth to see how the land lies, but Mrs Lecount sees through her disguise and cuts a bit of cloth from the hem of her brown alpaca dress as a keepsake.Scene four is in Aldborough, Suffolk, where Magdalen tries to carry out her plot to regain her inheritance by marrying Noel Vanstone under an assumed name, with Captain and Mrs Wragge posing as her uncle and aunt. Wragge and Lecount plot and plot in their attempts to outdo each other. In the end, Lecount is sent on a false errand to Zurich, and Magdalen and Noel are married. Captain Wragge arranges the marriage on condition that he will never have to see Magdalen again once it has happened.Scene five is in Balliol Cottage, Dumfries. Noel is alone, as his wife has left to visit her sister Norah in London. Mrs Lecount is back from Zurich and explains who his wife really is, with the help of the cut bit of cloth from the brown placa dress. Noel at her direction rewrites his will, cutting off his wife and leaving a legacy to Lecount and everything else to Admiral Bartram his cousin. He encloses a secret letter, asking Admiral Bartram that the money be passed to young George Bartram, but only on the condition that he marry someone not a widow within six months, thus ensuring that Magdalen cannot marry George for the money. The strain of this scheming is all too much and he dies from a weak heart.Scene six is St John's Wood where Magdalen has lodgings. Estranged from Norah and from Miss Garth, who she thinks betrayed her husband’s whereabouts to Lecount, she hatches a crazy plot to disguise herself as a maid and infiltrate herself into Admiral Bartram’s house to look for the Secret Trust document. Biography

The story begins in 1846, at Combe-Raven in West Somersetshire, the country residence of the happy Vanstone family. The first scene is a wonderfully dramatic legal thriller. The reader is introduced to Mr Andrew Vanstone, Mrs. Vanstone and their two daughters Norah, age 26, happy and quiet, and the irrepressible Magdalen, just 18, beautiful but with a steely jaw. They live in peace and contentment, looked after by their governess, Miss Garth. Magdalen likes nothing better than to read at her window while her personal maid combs through and through her long hair. “Private theatricals!” is the cry as she signs up for a performance of Sheridan’s “The Rivals”. She finds herself a talented actress and falls in love with Frank Clare, the good for nothing but handsome son of a neighbor, whom she entices into the play. They are to be married, their fathers agree, and then the bottom drops out of their world. Mr. Vanstone is killed in a local train crash, and Mrs Vanstone dies in childbirth. The girls discover from the lawyer Mr. Pendril that their parents have only been married a few months and the wedding invalidated their will (which left everything to the daughters). The daughters have no name, no rights, no property and the entire family fortune is inherited by an older brother Michael Vanstone who has been estranged from the family for many years. With the help only of their loyal governess Miss Garth, the two girls set out to make their own way in the world.From the second scene onwards, the character of the novel completely changes. It becomes comic as the confidence tricksters try to outdo each other. This scene is in York, where Magdalen enlists the help of Captain Wragge, a distant relative of her mother’s and a professional swindler. He helps get Magdalen started on the stage in return for a share of the proceeds. His wife Matilda, a huge clown of a lady, has to be kept in check. Her head is full of recipes and dressmaking.Scene three is in Vauxhall Walk, Lambeth. Magdalen, having earned some money, forsakes the stage and plots to get her inheritance back. Michael Vanstone has died and his only son, Noel Vanstone is sickly and looked after by his housekeeper, Virginie Lecount, a shrewd woman who hopes to inherit his money. Magdalen goes to Lambeth disguised as Miss Garth to see how the land lies, but Mrs Lecount sees through her disguise and cuts a bit of cloth from the hem of her brown alpaca dress as a keepsake.Scene four is in Aldborough, Suffolk, where Magdalen tries to carry out her plot to regain her inheritance by marrying Noel Vanstone under an assumed name, with Captain and Mrs Wragge posing as her uncle and aunt. Wragge and Lecount plot and plot in their attempts to outdo each other. In the end, Lecount is sent on a false errand to Zurich, and Magdalen and Noel are married. Captain Wragge arranges the marriage on condition that he will never have to see Magdalen again once it has happened.Scene five is in Balliol Cottage, Dumfries. Noel is alone, as his wife has left to visit her sister Norah in London. Mrs Lecount is back from Zurich and explains who his wife really is, with the help of the cut bit of cloth from the brown placa dress. Noel at her direction rewrites his will, cutting off his wife and leaving a legacy to Lecount and everything else to Admiral Bartram his cousin. He encloses a secret letter, asking Admiral Bartram that the money be passed to young George Bartram, but only on the condition that he marry someone not a widow within six months, thus ensuring that Magdalen cannot marry George for the money. The strain of this scheming is all too much and he dies from a weak heart.Scene six is St John's Wood where Magdalen has lodgings. Estranged from Norah and from Miss Garth, who she thinks betrayed her husband’s whereabouts to Lecount, she hatches a crazy plot to disguise herself as a maid and infiltrate herself into Admiral Bartram’s house to look for the Secret Trust document. Biography

The story begins in 1846, at Combe-Raven in West Somersetshire, the country residence of the happy Vanstone family. The first scene is a wonderfully dramatic legal thriller. The reader is introduced to Mr Andrew Vanstone, Mrs. Vanstone and their two daughters Norah, age 26, happy and quiet, and the irrepressible Magdalen, just 18, beautiful but with a steely jaw. They live in peace and contentment, looked after by their governess, Miss Garth. Magdalen likes nothing better than to read at her window while her personal maid combs through and through her long hair. “Private theatricals!” is the cry as she signs up for a performance of Sheridan’s “The Rivals”. She finds herself a talented actress and falls in love with Frank Clare, the good for nothing but handsome son of a neighbor, whom she entices into the play. They are to be married, their fathers agree, and then the bottom drops out of their world. Mr. Vanstone is killed in a local train crash, and Mrs Vanstone dies in childbirth. The girls discover from the lawyer Mr. Pendril that their parents have only been married a few months and the wedding invalidated their will (which left everything to the daughters). The daughters have no name, no rights, no property and the entire family fortune is inherited by an older brother Michael Vanstone who has been estranged from the family for many years. With the help only of their loyal governess Miss Garth, the two girls set out to make their own way in the world.From the second scene onwards, the character of the novel completely changes. It becomes comic as the confidence tricksters try to outdo each other. This scene is in York, where Magdalen enlists the help of Captain Wragge, a distant relative of her mother’s and a professional swindler. He helps get Magdalen started on the stage in return for a share of the proceeds. His wife Matilda, a huge clown of a lady, has to be kept in check. Her head is full of recipes and dressmaking.Scene three is in Vauxhall Walk, Lambeth. Magdalen, having earned some money, forsakes the stage and plots to get her inheritance back. Michael Vanstone has died and his only son, Noel Vanstone is sickly and looked after by his housekeeper, Virginie Lecount, a shrewd woman who hopes to inherit his money. Magdalen goes to Lambeth disguised as Miss Garth to see how the land lies, but Mrs Lecount sees through her disguise and cuts a bit of cloth from the hem of her brown alpaca dress as a keepsake.Scene four is in Aldborough, Suffolk, where Magdalen tries to carry out her plot to regain her inheritance by marrying Noel Vanstone under an assumed name, with Captain and Mrs Wragge posing as her uncle and aunt. Wragge and Lecount plot and plot in their attempts to outdo each other. In the end, Lecount is sent on a false errand to Zurich, and Magdalen and Noel are married. Captain Wragge arranges the marriage on condition that he will never have to see Magdalen again once it has happened.Scene five is in Balliol Cottage, Dumfries. Noel is alone, as his wife has left to visit her sister Norah in London. Mrs Lecount is back from Zurich and explains who his wife really is, with the help of the cut bit of cloth from the brown placa dress. Noel at her direction rewrites his will, cutting off his wife and leaving a legacy to Lecount and everything else to Admiral Bartram his cousin. He encloses a secret letter, asking Admiral Bartram that the money be passed to young George Bartram, but only on the condition that he marry someone not a widow within six months, thus ensuring that Magdalen cannot marry George for the money. The strain of this scheming is all too much and he dies from a weak heart.Scene six is St John's Wood where Magdalen has lodgings. Estranged from Norah and from Miss Garth, who she thinks betrayed her husband’s whereabouts to Lecount, she hatches a crazy plot to disguise herself as a maid and infiltrate herself into Admiral Bartram’s house to look for the Secret Trust document. Biography

The story begins in 1846, at Combe-Raven in West Somersetshire, the country residence of the happy Vanstone family. The first scene is a wonderfully dramatic legal thriller. The reader is introduced to Mr Andrew Vanstone, Mrs. Vanstone and their two daughters Norah, age 26, happy and quiet, and the irrepressible Magdalen, just 18, beautiful but with a steely jaw. They live in peace and contentment, looked after by their governess, Miss Garth. Magdalen likes nothing better than to read at her window while her personal maid combs through and through her long hair. “Private theatricals!” is the cry as she signs up for a performance of Sheridan’s “The Rivals”. She finds herself a talented actress and falls in love with Frank Clare, the good for nothing but handsome son of a neighbor, whom she entices into the play. They are to be married, their fathers agree, and then the bottom drops out of their world. Mr. Vanstone is killed in a local train crash, and Mrs Vanstone dies in childbirth. The girls discover from the lawyer Mr. Pendril that their parents have only been married a few months and the wedding invalidated their will (which left everything to the daughters). The daughters have no name, no rights, no property and the entire family fortune is inherited by an older brother Michael Vanstone who has been estranged from the family for many years. With the help only of their loyal governess Miss Garth, the two girls set out to make their own way in the world.From the second scene onwards, the character of the novel completely changes. It becomes comic as the confidence tricksters try to outdo each other. This scene is in York, where Magdalen enlists the help of Captain Wragge, a distant relative of her mother’s and a professional swindler. He helps get Magdalen started on the stage in return for a share of the proceeds. His wife Matilda, a huge clown of a lady, has to be kept in check. Her head is full of recipes and dressmaking.Scene three is in Vauxhall Walk, Lambeth. Magdalen, having earned some money, forsakes the stage and plots to get her inheritance back. Michael Vanstone has died and his only son, Noel Vanstone is sickly and looked after by his housekeeper, Virginie Lecount, a shrewd woman who hopes to inherit his money. Magdalen goes to Lambeth disguised as Miss Garth to see how the land lies, but Mrs Lecount sees through her disguise and cuts a bit of cloth from the hem of her brown alpaca dress as a keepsake.Scene four is in Aldborough, Suffolk, where Magdalen tries to carry out her plot to regain her inheritance by marrying Noel Vanstone under an assumed name, with Captain and Mrs Wragge posing as her uncle and aunt. Wragge and Lecount plot and plot in their attempts to outdo each other. In the end, Lecount is sent on a false errand to Zurich, and Magdalen and Noel are married. Captain Wragge arranges the marriage on condition that he will never have to see Magdalen again once it has happened.Scene five is in Balliol Cottage, Dumfries. Noel is alone, as his wife has left to visit her sister Norah in London. Mrs Lecount is back from Zurich and explains who his wife really is, with the help of the cut bit of cloth from the brown placa dress. Noel at her direction rewrites his will, cutting off his wife and leaving a legacy to Lecount and everything else to Admiral Bartram his cousin. He encloses a secret letter, asking Admiral Bartram that the money be passed to young George Bartram, but only on the condition that he marry someone not a widow within six months, thus ensuring that Magdalen cannot marry George for the money. The strain of this scheming is all too much and he dies from a weak heart.Scene six is St John's Wood where Magdalen has lodgings. Estranged from Norah and from Miss Garth, who she thinks betrayed her husband’s whereabouts to Lecount, she hatches a crazy plot to disguise herself as a maid and infiltrate herself into Admiral Bartram’s house to look for the Secret Trust document. Biography

The story begins in 1846, at Combe-Raven in West Somersetshire, the country residence of the happy Vanstone family. The first scene is a wonderfully dramatic legal thriller. The reader is introduced to Mr Andrew Vanstone, Mrs. Vanstone and their two daughters Norah, age 26, happy and quiet, and the irrepressible Magdalen, just 18, beautiful but with a steely jaw. They live in peace and contentment, looked after by their governess, Miss Garth. Magdalen likes nothing better than to read at her window while her personal maid combs through and through her long hair. “Private theatricals!” is the cry as she signs up for a performance of Sheridan’s “The Rivals”. She finds herself a talented actress and falls in love with Frank Clare, the good for nothing but handsome son of a neighbor, whom she entices into the play. They are to be married, their fathers agree, and then the bottom drops out of their world. Mr. Vanstone is killed in a local train crash, and Mrs Vanstone dies in childbirth. The girls discover from the lawyer Mr. Pendril that their parents have only been married a few months and the wedding invalidated their will (which left everything to the daughters). The daughters have no name, no rights, no property and the entire family fortune is inherited by an older brother Michael Vanstone who has been estranged from the family for many years. With the help only of their loyal governess Miss Garth, the two girls set out to make their own way in the world.From the second scene onwards, the character of the novel completely changes. It becomes comic as the confidence tricksters try to outdo each other. This scene is in York, where Magdalen enlists the help of Captain Wragge, a distant relative of her mother’s and a professional swindler. He helps get Magdalen started on the stage in return for a share of the proceeds. His wife Matilda, a huge clown of a lady, has to be kept in check. Her head is full of recipes and dressmaking.Scene three is in Vauxhall Walk, Lambeth. Magdalen, having earned some money, forsakes the stage and plots to get her inheritance back. Michael Vanstone has died and his only son, Noel Vanstone is sickly and looked after by his housekeeper, Virginie Lecount, a shrewd woman who hopes to inherit his money. Magdalen goes to Lambeth disguised as Miss Garth to see how the land lies, but Mrs Lecount sees through her disguise and cuts a bit of cloth from the hem of her brown alpaca dress as a keepsake.Scene four is in Aldborough, Suffolk, where Magdalen tries to carry out her plot to regain her inheritance by marrying Noel Vanstone under an assumed name, with Captain and Mrs Wragge posing as her uncle and aunt. Wragge and Lecount plot and plot in their attempts to outdo each other. In the end, Lecount is sent on a false errand to Zurich, and Magdalen and Noel are married. Captain Wragge arranges the marriage on condition that he will never have to see Magdalen again once it has happened.Scene five is in Balliol Cottage, Dumfries. Noel is alone, as his wife has left to visit her sister Norah in London. Mrs Lecount is back from Zurich and explains who his wife really is, with the help of the cut bit of cloth from the brown placa dress. Noel at her direction rewrites his will, cutting off his wife and leaving a legacy to Lecount and everything else to Admiral Bartram his cousin. He encloses a secret letter, asking Admiral Bartram that the money be passed to young George Bartram, but only on the condition that he marry someone not a widow within six months, thus ensuring that Magdalen cannot marry George for the money. The strain of this scheming is all too much and he dies from a weak heart.Scene six is St John's Wood where Magdalen has lodgings. Estranged from Norah and from Miss Garth, who she thinks betrayed her husband’s whereabouts to Lecount, she hatches a crazy plot to disguise herself as a maid and infiltrate herself into Admiral Bartram’s house to look for the Secret Trust document. Biography

From the author of The Moonstone and The Woman in White. Sisters Magdalen and Norah Vanstone and her sister Norah are left to fend for themselves when their parents die and a disturbing truth becomes public. Disinherited by law and brutally ousted from the idyllic country estate which has been their peaceful home since childhood, the two young women choose radically different means to get their lives back on track. While Nora follows a path of duty and hardship as a governess, Magdalen uses her good looks to pursue a course of revenge on the men who destroyed her father. Aided by the audacious swindler Captain Wragge, she braves a series of trials leading up to the climactic test: can she trade herself in marriage to the man she loathes?Written in the early 1860s, between The Woman in White and The Moonstone, No Name was rejected as immoral by critics of its time, but is today regarded as a novel of outstanding social insight, showing Collins at the height of his powers. This under-rated but brilliant Wilkie Collins classic is presented with a selection of original illustrations and links to free full-length audio recordings of No Name.*Active Table of Contents accessible from the Kindle "go to" feature. *Perfect formatting in rich text compatible with Kindle's Text-to-Speech features.

William Wilkie Collins (1824 – 1889) was an English novelist, playwright, and author of short stories. His best-known works are The Woman in White (1859), No Name (1862), Armadale (1866), and The Moonstone (1868). Collins’s works were classified at the time as ”sensation novels,” a genre seen nowadays as the precursor to detective and suspense fiction. He also wrote penetratingly on the plight of women and on the social and domestic issues of his time. For example, his 1854 Hide and Seek contained one of the first portrayals of a deaf character in English literature. As did many writers of his time, Collins published most of his novels as serials in magazines such as Dickens’s All the Year Round and was known as a master of the form, creating just the right degree of suspense to keep his audience reading from week to week. Sales of All The Year Round increased when The Woman in White followed A Tale of Two Cities.

No Name was published soon after The Woman in White, and was very popular at the time. It has a preposterous convoluted plot about an illegitimate young woman, her father’s favourite, who loses her inheritance after her parents die, and her illegal and deceitful efforts to regain it. She is eventually saved by a man who is twenty-one years older and fell in love with her at first sight a year before. The book contains both hilarious and moving parts, and despite the preposterous plot keeps one reading – if only to find out how it ends.As in many of his other books Wilkie Collins has used a rather idiosyncratic format, with eight “Scenes” set in different places and containing two to fifteen chapters. There are “Between the Scenes” sections consisting of letters or diary entries which give the characters a place to speak in the first person and express their own perceptions and attitudes.

THE main purpose of this story is to appeal to the reader's interest in a subject which has been the theme of some of the greatest writers, living and dead—but which has never been, and can never be, exhausted, because it is a subject eternally interesting to all mankind. Here is one more book that depicts the struggle of a human creature, under those opposing influences of Good and Evil, which we have all felt, which we have all known. It has been my aim to make the character of "Magdalen," which personifies this struggle, a pathetic character even in its perversity and its error; and I have tried hard to attain this result by the least obtrusive and the least artificial of all means—by a resolute adherence throughout to the truth as it is in Nature. This design was no easy one to accomplish; and it has been a great encouragement to me (during the publication of my story in its periodical form) to know, on the authority of many readers, that the object which I had proposed to myself, I might, in some degree, consider as an object achieved.Round the central figure in the narrative other characters will be found grouped, in sharp contrast—contrast, for the most part, in which I have endeavored to make the element of humor mainly predominant. I have sought to impart this relief to the more serious passages in the book, not only because I believe myself to be justified in doing so by the laws of Art—but because experience has taught me (what the experience of my readers will doubtless confirm) that there is no such moral phenomenon as unmixed tragedy to be found in the world around us. Look where we may, the dark threads and the light cross each other perpetually in the texture of human life.To pass from the Characters to the Story, it will be seen that the narrative related in these pages has been constructed on a plan which differs from the plan followed in my last novel, and in some other of my works published at an earlier date.

- With biography of Wilkie Collins.No Name by Wilkie Collins is a 19th-century novel revolving around the issue of illegitimacy. It was originally serialised in Charles Dickens's magazine All the Year Round before book publication. Published in 1862 at the peak of Collins's career, one of his four major novels. Dedicated to Francis Carr Beard, his doctor and long standing friend. Following the success of The Woman in White, published a large first edition of 4,000 copies. All but 400 sold by the afternoon of the first day. An early didactic novel, it addresses the theme of illegitimacy. In spite of its popular success many of the critics were scathing about the topic and disapproved of the heroine's near-criminal career. H. L. Mansel of The Quarterly Review wrote, 'We have often heard an illegal connexion and its result euphemistically designated a 'misfortune;' but this is the first time as far as we are aware in which a lawful marriage has been denominated an "accident."' The novel features one of Collins's most dynamic heroines, and one of his most engaging rogues, Captain Wragge. The story begins in 1846, at Combe-Raven in West Somersetshire, the country residence of the happy Vanstone family. When Andrew Vanstone is killed suddenly in an accident and his wife follows shortly thereafter, it is revealed that they were not married at the time of their daughters' births, making their daughters "Nobody's Children" in the eyes of English law and robbing them of their inheritance.