Wilkie Collins

Considered the first true detective story Wilkie Collins' The Moonstone (1868) is a 19th-century British epistolary novel. Originally serialized in Charles Dickens' magazine All the Year Round, it introduced many hallmarks of detective fiction, including an English country house setting, bungling local policemen, and a large number of false suspects. In it, Rachel Verinder, a young English woman, inherits a large Indian diamond on her eighteenth birthday...

Allan Armadale makes a startling deathbed confession to be shared with his young son once he reaches adulthood-he murdered another man named Allan Armadale. It's a dark secret that inevitably looms over the child of the perpetrator and his victim. Before dying, Allan Armadale reveals that he previously killed a man also named Allan Armadale. It's a revelation meant for his young son who discovers the information as an adult. At this point, he's...

When a condemned woman asks the local Minister to take her daughter home, the childless man is touched and finds himself unable to refuse. Yet the prisoner is unrepentant of the murder of her husband. Will her vices be passed on to this seemingly sweet child?

A sane woman is locked up in an asylum by a fraudulent English aristocrat who is afraid she may expose his 'secret.' Escaping while wearing a white gown, she runs into a youthful hero who becomes haunted by his brief meeting with this 'woman in white.'

A collection of women's literature spanning 3 centuries. All stories have been carefully chosen for their strong female characters and are full of humour, drama and insight. Some are written by great female icons, others by well-known male writers.