The Autobiographical Works of Wilkie Collins

Оглавление

Уилки Коллинз. The Autobiographical Works of Wilkie Collins

The Autobiographical Works of Wilkie Collins

Reading suggestions

Table of Contents

Biographies:

Memoirs of the Life of William Collins (With Selections From His Journals and Correspondence)

Preface

Volume I

Part I

Chapter I

Chapter II

Part II

Chapter I

Chapter II

Chapter III

Chapter IV

Chapter V

Volume II

Chapter I

Chapter II

Part III

Chapter I

Chapter II

Part IV

Chapter I

Chapter II

Chapter III

Chapter IV

Letters and Literary Writings:

A Clause for the New Reform Bill

A Column to Burns

A Dramatic Author

A Fair Penitent

A Pictorial Tour to St George Bosherville

A Shy Scheme

Address from the Queen to Certain of Her Subjects in Office

Awful Warning to Bachelors

Books Necessary for a Liberal Education

Burns Viewed As a Hat-Peg

Considerations on The Copyright Question

Deep Design on Society

Doctor Dulcamara, MP

Dramatic Grub Street

How I Write My Books

Magnetic Evenings at Home

Pity a Poor Prince

Rambles Beyond Railways

Preface to the Present Edition

I. A Letter of Introduction

II. A Cornish Fishing Town

III. Holy Wells and Druid Relics

IV. Cornish People

V. Loo-Pool

VI. The Lizard

VII. The Pilchard Fishery

VIII. The Land’s End

IX. Botallack Mine

X. The Modern Drama in Cornwall

XI. The Ancient Drama in Cornwall

XII. The Nuns of Mawgan

XIII. Legends of the Northern Coast

Postscript to Rambles Beyond Railways

Reminiscences of a Storyteller

Sermon for Sepoys

Thanks to Doctor Livingstone

The Cruise of the Tomtit

The Debtor’s Best Friend

The Exhibition of the Royal Academy

The Little Huguenot

The National Gallery and the Old Masters

Отрывок из книги

Wilkie Collins

Letters and Literary Writings:

.....

To the Exhibition of 1816, the painter contributed, besides two portraits, a picture, called “The Argument at the Spring,” and a sea-piece (afterwards engraved) entitled “Shrimp Boys — Cromer.” The first work was in his now popular and accustomed style, and represented a young girl standing in the water, and endeavouring to induce a little urchin, ready stripped for the bath, to approach her and submit himself to the process of ablution. The second displayed extraordinary truth to Nature and originality of arrangement, but could hardly be said, though a seaside view, to be — intellectually — the commencement of the series of coast-scenes, which he was afterwards to produce. It was an evidence, rather, of the dawning of the capability for new efforts in the Art, than of the triumph of the capacity itself. How that capacity became suddenly awakened and called forth, it is now necessary to relate.

Although Mr. Collins’s pictures this year were sold — ”The Argument at the Spring,” being disposed of to Mr. Williams, and the scene at Cromer purchased by Sir Thomas Heathcote, (probably as the companion picture he desired; “Half-Holiday Muster,” having been ultimately bought by Lady Lucas) his pecuniary prospects, towards the autumn, became alarmingly altered for the worse. Liberal and discriminating as many of the patrons of Art were in those days, they were few in number. The nation had not yet rallied from the exhausting effects of long and expensive wars; and painting still struggled slowly onward, through the political obstacles and social confusions of the age. The remuneration obtained for works of Art, was often less than half that which is now realised by modern pictures, in these peaceful times of vast and general patronage. Although every succeeding year gained him increased popularity, and although artists and amateurs gave renewed praise and frequent encouragement to every fresh effort of his pencil, Mr. Collins remained, as regarded his pecuniary affairs, in anything but affluent, or even easy circumstances. Passages in his Journal for this year, will be found to indicate his own consciousness of the gradual disorder that was, at this period, fast approaching in his professional resources.

.....