Blind Love

by Collins, Wilkie; Bachman, Maria K.; Cox, Don Richard

• ISBN13: 9781551114477
• ISBN10: 155111447X
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2003-11-01
• Publisher: Broadview Pr

Summary

Blind Love is Wilkie Collins's final novel. Although he did not live to complete the work, he left detailed plans for the last third of this absorbingly plotted novel which were faithfully executed by his colleague, the popular author Walter Besant. The novel is set during the Irish Land War of the early 1880s and tells the story of Iris Henley, an independent young woman who marries the "wild" Lord Harry Norland, a member of an Irish secret society, and becomes unhappily drawn into a conspiracy plot.The Broadview edition of Blind Love includes a critical introduction and primary source materials that address the novel's focus on movements for Irish independence. Appendices include newspaper accounts of Ireland during the Land War and of the fraud case on which Collins based his story, articles reacting to Collins's sudden death, Punch cartoons depicting the English attitudes toward the Irish, and contemporary reviews.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments	7	(9)
Introduction	9	(3)
Historical Context: The Irish Question	12	(7)
Wilkie Collins's Response to the Irish Question	19	(2)
Anglo-Saxon vs. Celt: The Imperialist Agenda	21	(2)
Wilkie Collins and the ``Woman Question''	23	(8)
The Von Scheurer Fraud	31	(3)
Blind Love: The History and Evolution of the Text	34	(14)
William Wilkie Collins: A Brief Chronology	48	(3)
A Note on the Text	51	(4)
Blind Love	55	(338)
Appendix A: Reaction to the Death of Wilkie Collins	393	(6)
1. ``Death of Mr. Wilkie Collins,'' The Times, 24 September 1889	393	(2)
2. ``The Late Mr. Wilkie Collins,'' The Illustrated London News, 28 September 1889	395	(2)
3. ``Obituary. Wilkie Collins,'' The Academy, 28 September 1889	397	(2)
Appendix B: Contemporary Reviews of Collins's Work	399	(18)
1. ``The Works of Wilkie Collins,'' Temple Bar, August 1890	399	(4)
Edmund Yates
2. ``Wilkie Collins,'' The Spectator, 28 September 1889	403	(3)
Meredith White Thompson
3. ``New Novels,'' The Academy, 15 March 1890	406	(1)
George Cotterell
4. ``Blind Love,'' New York Tribune, 23 January 1890	407	(1)
5. ``Mr. Wilkie Collins's Novels,'' Contemporary Review, January 1890	408	(4)
Andrew Lang
6. ``In Memoriam Amici: Wilkie Collins,'' The Universal Review, 5, 1889	412	(5)
Harold Quilter
Appendix C: Horace Pym's Notes on the Von Scheurer Case	417	(6)
Appendix D: Newspaper Accounts of the Insurance Trial	423	(2)
1. ``The Scheurer Frauds,'' The Times, 25 April 1888	423	(1)
2. ``France,'' The Times, 26 April 1888	424	(1)
3. ``France,'' The Times, 27 April 1888	424	(1)
Appendix E: The Prologue to ``Iris,'' Manuscript ``C,'' 1887	425	(6)
Appendix F: Excerpts from Collins's Plans for Blind Love: The Synopsis	431	(6)
1. The Cast of Characters	431	(1)
2. The Synopsis	432	(5)
Appendix G: The Irish Question	437	(22)
1. Accounts from The Times, 1882	437	(18)
2. The Irish as Depicted in Punch, 1866, 1881, 1882	455	(4)
Appendix H: The Duties of the Lady's Maid	459	(4)
Select Bibliography	463