Literature Network » Wilkie Collins

Master of vice They are famous for their sensational plots and their casts of doppelgangers and freaks. But the novels of Wilkie Collins have never been successfully adapted for the stage, says Matthew Sweet. So how has Andrew Lloyd Webber tackled `Th

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From: The Independent on Sunday
Date: 20040822
Author:Matthew Sweet

One of the great moments in Victorian fiction involves a plate of fondant fancies, two pieces of string, a hefty female transvestite in hobnail boots and a Byronic beauty whose athletic torso is some compensation for the complete absence of his legs.

The novel is The Law and the Lady (1875). The author is Wilkie Collins. The scene takes place in an upper room of a grand suburban house owned by Miserrimus Dexter, an amateur artist and truffle- connoisseur who, when he's not speeding around in his wheelchair declaring himself to be Napoleon or Shakespeare, is hopping around on his hands like ...

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