No Name (Penguin Classics)

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If you enjoyed No Name, you might like Anthony Trollope's Can You Forgive Her?, also available in Penguin Classics. Read more Details VI. Magdalen goes into hiding. Mrs Lecount writes to Norah and gets a reply from Mrs Garth herself. Wragge fends off Mrs Lecount’s enquiries and plots with Noel Vanstone to neutralise her influence. The Woman in White was serialised in All the Year Round from November 1859 to August 1860 to great success. The novel was published in book form soon after and reached an eighth edition by November 1860. His rising success as a writer allowed Collins to resign his post with All the Year Round in 1862 and focus on his novels. While planning his next novel, No Name, he continued to suffer from gout, which began to affect his eyes. Serial publication of No Name began in early 1862 and finished in 1863. By that time Collins was having difficulty controlling the amount of laudanum he was taking for his continual gout and became addicted. [15] Dizzyingly readable, with a feminist anti-heroine up to all sorts of deception and skulduggery, cheered along by the reader every step of the way."— Mail on Sunday III. Magdalen wants to retrieve her inheritance from her uncle and thinks to use Wragge as a spy and agent – despite her reservations about him. Wragge becomes her theatrical promoter (for 50% of her earnings) and organises their escape from York – at her expense.

Collins was a professing Christian. [22] Works [ edit ] Captioned "The Novelist who invented Sensation", caricature of Wilkie Collins in Vanity Fair, 3 February 1872 The last scene is set in a poor lodging house, Aaron's Building. Magdalen is ill and destitute, on the verge of being sent to a hospital or the workhouse, when a handsome man appears and rescues her. It is Captain Kirke, the sailor who had become enamored of her after seeing her once at Aldborough. Meanwhile, Norah has married George Bartram, thus inadvertently regaining half the Vanstone inheritance. The other half reverted to Magdalen, because her dead husband never made a provision for George not marrying within 6 months, or the admiral passing away. Magdalen however denies her money, because she is trying to become a better person. Admiring the integrity of Norah and Captain Kirke, she confesses her disreputable past to him and affirms that she will live a life worthy of him henceforth. The novel ends with Kirke and Magdalen professing their mutual love.Their fathers agree to the marriage, but before it takes place Mr. Vanstone is killed in a train crash and Mrs. Vanstone dies in childbirth. The family lawyer, Mr. Pendril, tells Norah and Magdalen that despite appearances their parents had only been married for a few months, and their wedding invalidated the will which left everything to the daughters. Main article: Wilkie Collins bibliography Cover of the first edition of The Haunted Hotel by Wilkie Collins, 1879 The book has been adapted for radio. It was broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in six episodes, from 24 September to 29 October 1989 and repeated on BBC Radio 4 Extra beginning 4 March 2013, and again in October 2019 and September 2021. [2] [3] Characters [ edit ] Major characters [ edit ] After this she becomes Mrs Vanstone following her marriage to Noel. This lasts until his death, at which point she becomes technically nameless again – because the marriage is technically invalid, since she has given the false name of Bygrave on her marriage licence.

Her desire for revenge over her rapacious relative is understandable – but neither she nor Wilkie Collins seem to have a clear objective or ‘plan of engagement’. She cannot recover the money by marriage; she cannot reverse the system of inheritance; and short of murdering her husband (which she never contemplates) she cannot gain control over the estate.Miss Garth took Norah and Magdalen with her to her sister’s home for a time. It was decided that the girls should find employment as governesses there. One day, Magdalen suddenly disappeared. Captain Wragge discovered her after a reward had been offered for news of her whereabouts; but instead of claiming the reward, he took her home to Mrs. Wragge, a sad giantess of a woman. Learning of Magdalen’s desire to be an actress, he promised to train her and act as her manager. George Bertram pays court to Norah. Magdalen’s plan is delayed by six weeks because of the death of the legatee in the Secret Trust. This story started off presenting us with two interesting heroines to identify with: sisters Magdalen and Norah. It also had a very interesting premise, with surprising past events and legalities disinheriting the sisters from both the family fortune and the family name. I thought I might finally be reading a great Collins novel. No Name (1862) by Wilkie Collins is a 19th-century novel revolving upon the issue of illegitimacy. The story begins in 1846, at Combe-Raven in West Somersetshire, the country residence of the happy Vanstone family. When Andrew Vanstone is killed suddenly in an accident and his wife follows shortly thereafter, it is revealed that they were not married at the time of their daughters' births, making their daughters "Nobody's Children" in the eyes of English law and robbing them of their inheritance. Andrew Vanstone's elder brother Michael gleefully takes possession of his brother's fortune, leaving his nieces to make their own way in the world. Norah, the elder sister, accepts her misfortune gracefully, but the headstrong Magdalen is determined to have her revenge. Using her dramatic talent and assisted by wily swindler Captain Wragge, Magdalen plots to regain her rightful inheritance. Not only the thriller in itself, but also the unconventional way of presenting the facts, the battle of Magdalen's conscience between good and evil and the outcome of the story teaches a lesson which is still useful nowadays.

Under English law therefore, his entire estate goes to his next of kin – his estranged brother Michael, who heartlessly makes no concessions or recompense towards the two orphaned nieces, Norah and Magdalen, whom he regards as bastard children.It has to be said that towards the end of this over-elaborated story, the plot collapses somewhat into a spate of melodramatic improbabilities. Magdalen not only secures a job as maid in the very house where the Secret Trust is kept. She does this by impersonating someone else, but she manages to read the letter of Trust over the shoulder of the Admiral, who is inspecting his private papers whilst sleepwalking. has been denominated an "accident."' The novel features one of Collins's most dynamic heroines, and one of George Bartram describes his search for his cousin Noel Vanstone and Mrs Lecount’s arrival at St Crux. Vanstone goes into hiding, and Magdalen writes to Norah. Mrs Lecount makes legal enquiries to locate Vanstone, with vengeance in mind. It is discovered that Vanstone made a will after the marriage. Mrs Lecount reveals the illegality of the marriage to Norah and Miss Garth. She then traces Vanstone and Magdalen to Dumfries.