William Wilkie Collins was an English author and playwright. He was born in 1824 in London, and died in 1889, also in London. His father was the well-known landscape and portrait painter, William Collins. Collins’s name “Wilkie” comes from his godfather, Sir David Wilkie.
Collins’s schooling began in 1835 at Maida Hill Academy, and he later continued his schooling at Cole’s Boarding School. He says he began his career as a storyteller while at boarding school, in order to appease the dormitory bully. Collins had a distinctive and strange appearance, with a prominent bulge on the right side of his forehead, and his head and shoulders being disproportionately large. He also possessed...
