Synopsis "Basil"

Wilkie Collins novel Basil was his second lengthy fiction work published in 1852 devoted to Charles Ward. It was his first modern novel. An early novel by Wilkie Collins, 'Basil' depicts the story of a young gentleman from a rich traditional family. Basil falls in love at first sight with the beautiful seventeen-year-old Margaret Sherwin. The daughter of a tanner, Margaret belongs to a much lower social status than Basil. Basil's father is a very reputated man and, knowing his father's hostility towards those who marry below their status, Basil keeps his affair a secret -even from Clara, the sister he loves. When Basil meets Margaret's father and tells his desire to marry her. Mr. Sherwin takes a promise from Basil that he will marry Margaret at once but will not accomplish the marriage for a year and during the period Margaret will stay back to his home. Astonishingly, Basil accepts all these conditions, he intensely adores Margaret, he marries her and meets her daily. Whilst he is visiting Margaret he becomes familiar with his father-in-law's chief clerk, Mr. Mannion, a very gentle good-looking middle-aged man who appears to have a impressive effect on Margaret and her mother. But is the pretty Margaret as attractive and virtuous as she appears?

Wilkie Collins

(Author)

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(London 1824-1889) Playwright, novelist, and prolific short story writer. At 17, he started working at a tea trading company while writing Ioláni, or Tahiti as it was (Gothic no. 32), a work that was not published until over a century after his death. He studied Law and, although he never practiced, he did use his legal knowledge in many of his works, and critics consider him one of the fathers of the detective genre. In 1851, he met Charles Dickens, with whom he formed a deep friendship and published his main works in his weekly All the Year Around. After Dickens' death in 1870, his popularity waned. He suffered from rheumatic gout which eventually led to an opium addiction. His tombstone epitaph highlights him as the author of the novel The Woman in White.

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