ABSTRACT

Mr Wilkie Collins takes the critics by the forelock; he warns them in his preface to keep their hands off his property [and not reveal the plot of the novel]. We may be allowed, perhaps, to observe that the plot is in point of intricacy a masterpiece, and to defy Oedipus himself, after reading two volumes, to predict the end of Sir Percival Glyde. We may also say without offence that the story is one of ‘thrilling interest;’ its elasticity is perfectly wonderful, and the elongation it suffers without much detriment is a caution even to indiarubber.