Synopsis "The Guilty River"

The Guilty River is a short novel, written by Wilkie Collins, late in his career. It was previously published as the 1886 Arrowsmith's Christmas Annual. The psychological impact of physical disability of a deaf man and love between a rich young man and low social status woman is the theme of this novel. The guilty river is the unattractive, filthiest stream in England. It passes by an old mill where the miller, his beautiful daughter, and a deaf lodger lived. The wealthy young man of the place, returns to his territory, after being absent for years. Accidentally he meets, this lodger and comes to know his peculiar story. Gerard and Cristal fall in love, sustaing lodger's enviousness.

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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