Basil

When Rachel Verinder's legacy of a priceless Indian diamond is stolen, all the evidence indicates that it is her beloved, Franklin Blake, who is guilty. Around this central axis of crime and thwarted love, Collins constructs an ingenious plot of teasing twists and surprises, and an elaborate multi-voiced narrative that sustains the tension all the way to its stunning ending. Described by T.S. Eliot as the first, the longest and the best of modern English detective novels, Wilkie...

William Wilkie Collins was an English novelist, playwright, and short story writer. This is the dtory about The girl named Mary – they called her Madonna, and she was deaf and dumb and beautiful as a painting by Raphael – was a mystery. All they did know about her identity was that she’d lost her hearing in an accident, and the proprietor of the circus had treated her horribly, and, and ... and in her cache of secret personal private things, she owned one thing as precious to her as life...

William Wilkie Collins was an English novelist, playwright, and short story writer. The adoptive daughter of a wealthy aristocrat is waiting for a profi table marriage. What hides her past? She lived in a shelter, dragged on a miserable existence and in a moment of desperation she appropriated other people’s documents, another’s life story. But the specter of the past breaks into a real life - a deceived miser requires an answer. Will the Princes have enough courage to turn into Cinderella,...

William Wilkie Collins was an English novelist, playwright, and short story writer. In Basil’s secret and unconsummated marriage to the linendraper’s sexually precocious daughter, and the shocking betrayal, insanity, and death that follow, Wilkie Collins reveals the bustling, commercial London of the 19th century wreaking its vengeance on a still powerful aristocratic world.

William Wilkie Collins was an English novelist, playwright, and short story writer. Mad Monkton is a bizarre ghost story. It is said that a strain of hereditary madness blights the Monkton family, heirs to the huge domain of Wincot Abbey. Rumours in the neighbourhood are that Alfred, the youngest scion, has inherited this insanity. He is engaged to his childhood sweetheart, Ada Elmslie. However, Alfred suddenly departs for Italy, seeking the corpse of his disreputable uncle, who is believed to...

Penguin Readers is a graded reading series for English Language Teaching (ELT) markets, designed for teenagers and young adults learning English as a foreign or second language. With carefully adapted text, new illustrations, language practise activities and additional online resources, the Penguin Readers series introduces language learners to bestselling authors and compelling content. Titles include popular classics, exciting contemporary fiction, and thought-provoking non-fiction. The Woman...