William Wilkie Collins (8 January 1824 - 23 September 1889) was an English novelist, playwright and short story writer best known for The Woman in White (1859) and The Moonstone (1868).
After his first novel, Antonina, appeared in 1850, he met Charles Dickens,.
He began work as a clerk for a tea merchant.
Born to the family of a painter, William Collins, in London, he grew up in Italy and France, learning French and Italian.
The last has been called the first modern English detective novel.
William Wilkie Collins (8 January 1824 - 23 September 1889) was an English novelist, playwright and short story writer best known for The Woman in White (1859) and The Moonstone (1868)