Books

New York: Harper & Brothers, 1860. First. Fine. SCARCE FIRST AMERICAN EDITION, FIRST STATE WITH THE FIRST ISSUE BINDING of one of the first and most influential detective novels. A beautiful copy. Note: We can find no other examples of the first issue with first state ads in public auction records. After the publication of The Woman in White William Wilkie Collins earned an international reputation as a master of his craft, a pioneer of detective writing and a creator of a new genre. Born in London in 1824, he was the son of a well-known landscape painter and a former governess. When he was twelve his family spent two years in Italy and France and Collins became fluent in French and Italian and learned more "among the scenery, the pictures, and the people, than I ever learned at school." His family returned to England when Collins was fourteen and as a boarding school student he told nightly stories to appease the dormitory bully. He later recalled that "it was this brute who…