William Wilkie Collins, an English novelist, son of the preceding, born in London in January, 1824. After being educated at a private school, and spending two years with his parents in Italy, he was articled for four years to a firm in the tea trade. Exchanging commerce for law, he was a student in Lincoln's Inn at the time of his father's death; and his first literary performance was an admirable biography of him, with selections from his journals and correspondence (1848). He devoted himself from this time entirely to literature, and published successively, between 1850 and 1854, " Antoni-na, or the Fall of Rome," "Rambles beyond Railways, or Notes in Cornwall," "Basil," "Mr. Wray's Cash Box," and "Hide and Seek." He soon after became a contributor to "Household Words." All his later novels originally appeared as serials in periodicals. The principal of them are: "After Dark" (1856), "The Dead Secret" (1857), "The Queen of Hearts" (1859), "The Woman in White" (1860), "No Name" (1862), "Armadale " (1866), " The Moonstone " (1868), "Man and Wife" (1870), "Poor Miss Finch" (1872), and "The New Magdalen" (1873). In 1863 appeared "My Miscellanies" (2 vols.), made up of contributions to journals.

He has also written three dramas, "The Frozen Deep," "The Lighthouse," and "Black and White." At the end of 1873 he visited the United States, where he gave public readings from his works in the principal cities.