No Name (Penguin Classics)

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Magdalen’s tenacious desire to regain the fortune that is rightfully hers and her sister’s makes up the bulk of No Names’s plot, which journeys all over England and sees some of the finest and most delicious villains which only Collins can make sympathetic rogues and anti-heroes. Noel is sickly, dependent on a controlling housekeeper, and a penny pinching miser, toward whom Magdalen felt only revulsion. They became a bit tedious and I lost interest from time to time, which is why I'm only giving the novel 3 stars.

And just when you think that having to battle through household after household in this drama wasn't enough, we're slammed in the face with utter desolation. The stress of writing an angry letter denouncing his wife is too much for Noel, and he dies from a weak heart. His best-known works are The Woman in White (1859), No Name (1862), Armadale (1866), and The Moonstone (1868), considered the first modern English detective novel. Maybe I’m a little bit biased and a just a plain old sucker for this type of literature, but I’ve been a fan of Wilkie Collins and his sensationalist style fiction since I read The Moonstone years ago. After his first novel Antonina was published in 1850, he met Charles Dickens, who became a close friend, mentor and collaborator.What I found remarkable in this book is that the main character, Magdalen, although defying convention, is entirely bound by it.

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.

Yet another commendable quality is the consideration Collins’ story raised about moral justice and the cost of self- vindication. Under the law, the huge estate went to a man who hated the dead father and had been seeking revenge against him for what he considered a crime that he committed that affected him. The money goes to their father’s estranged brother, Michael Vanstone, who resolutely refuses to help them. She does this by impersonating someone else, but she manages to read the letter of Trust over the shoulder of the Admiral, who is inspecting his private papers whilst sleepwalking. You can change your choices at any time by visiting Cookie preferences, as described in the Cookie notice.

Touching on a different legal concept, the book takes quite a turn from his more famous work - The Woman in White. The title “no name” describes two very nice girls who because of their parents’ “sin” are deprived of their name and legacy. c) get entangled in some ridiculous, unlikely and completely delicious plot twists and turns involving becoming an actress, perpetrating brilliant confidence tricks, fake marriage proposals, impersonations and the like with one of the great is-he-a-villain-or-is-he-a-hero characters in English fiction (Captain Wragge)? This unusual family situation presents a very serious dilemma for them as the laws of the time do not allow them to entitlement of their father’s inheritance. Même si les moyens qu'elle met en œuvre peuvent sembler à nous habitués aux romans et films d'espionnage menés tambours battants avec tout ce que la technologie moderne peut offrir, je me suis délectée du style de l'auteur.We don’t share your credit card details with third-party sellers, and we don’t sell your information to others. Mercurial and unscrupulous, Magdalen is Wilkie Collins's most exhilarating heroine, one of the rare subversives in Victorian fiction and a woman dazzlingly versatile in her powers of self-transformation. Scene One begins in 1846, at Combe-Raven in West Somerset, the country residence of the wealthy Vanstone family: Andrew Vanstone, his wife, and their two daughters. Given the highly over-wrought state of Magdalen’s sensibility regarding her plan to regain the inheritance, it is also surprising that Collins makes absolutely no mention of the sexual consequences of her marrying Noel Vanstone. No Name is an example of Collins’ training in estate law and the various intricacies of the rules and loopholes during that period in mid 19th century England.

A mysterious letter arrives from New Orleans, which means Mr Vanstone and his wife must go to London on ‘family business’. El otro factor importante por el que no he conseguido conectar son sus personajes y particularmente la protagonista, Magdalen, que a pesar de ser compleja e interesante, me sacaba de quicio constantemente. This is another great read that is just as exciting and suspenseful as the authors more famous work. With the help of an unscrupulous con artist, Captain Horatio Wragge, Magdalen embarks on a labyrinthine Machiavellian scheme to steal back her birthright.After reading these two most famous novels of Collins, I wanted to read some of his lesser known stories. Mrs Lecount goes to the Bygrave house and is confronted by Mrs Wragge, who tells her the tale of seeing Miss Garth’s ghost in Lambeth. Tan solo un par de personajes me gustaron realmente, entre los que destaco sin duda al MARAVILLOSO Capitán Wragge, por su mera presencia, las 700 páginas de este libro merecen la pena, ¡Porque menudo personajazo! At their parents' sudden death, a family secret is revealed and the sisters are disinherited and become 'Nobody's Children'. There is an interesting introduction in my Oxford World’s Classic edition, by Virginia Blain, Associate Professor in English at Macquarie University in Sydney.