Wilkie Collins

The Guilty River Wilkie Collins

Written late in Collins's career, it incorporates two of the themes often featured in his work: the psychological effects of physical handicap, in this case deafness, and the love of a middle-class man for an intelligent and independent woman from a lower social stratum. Collins began writing in September and worked twelve hours a day to enable the story to be published on 15 November 1886. Plot summary Enter Gerard Roylake, returning from Germany after his father dies, for his inheritance at Trimley Deen awaits. Whilst on an evening stroll he meets a childhood friend, Cristel Toller, and then their strange resident called The Lodger... Well of course Gerard likes Cristel, the Lodger is jealous, and soon a bizarre chain of events occur...