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Wilkie Collins' Victorian Sensation

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From: The Washington Post
Date: 19880103
Author:Dennis Drabelle

NO NAME By Wilkie Collins (1862)

LATE IN LIFE Wilkie Collins (1824-1889), a chronic sufferer from gout, became addicted to laudanum (tincture of opium), one of the Victorians' favorite anodynes. Like many a drug taken in excess, laudanum produces hallucinations, and Collins' naturally febrile imagination saw to it that his figments were doozies. "For example," writes Professor J.I.M. Stewart, "when he was going to bed, he used to meet at the turn of the stair a green woman with tusk teeth and the displeasing habit of biting a piece out of his shoulder."

Although nothing so hideous as the ...

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