Wilkie Collins

<p>Short and oddly built with a head too big for his body extremely short-sighted unable to stay still dressed in colourful clothes Wilkie Collins looked distinctly strange. But he was none the less a charmer befriended by the great loved by children irresistibly attractive to women &#150; and avidly read by generations of readers. <br><br>Peter Ackroyd follows his hero &#145;the sweetest-tempered of all the Victorian novelists&#146; from his childhood as the son of a well-known artist to his struggling beginnings as a writer his years of fame and his life-long friendship with the other great London chronicler Charles Dickens. As well as his enduring masterpieces <i>The Moonstone</i> &#150; often called the first true detective novel &#150; and the sensational <i>The Woman in White</i> he produced an intriguing array of lesser-known works. <br><br>Told with Ackroyd&#146;s inimitable verve this is a ravishingly entertaining life of a great storyteller full of surprises rich in humour and sympathetic understanding.</p>