ABSTRACT
Mr. Wilkie Collins has done more, perhaps, than almost any writer of the day to foster the taste for sensational stories. He is a pure story-teller, spending comparatively little care on anything but his plot; but in his own department he is unrivalled. There is no one who, with more consummate skill, can weave an exciting tale out of the most slight and unpromising materials, leading his reader on from point to point with ever-growing interest, concealing the mystery on which the whole depends till the proper time for disclosure comes, and, meanwhile, ever dangling it before the eye with an art that tantalizes even while it stimulates the curiosity….
