Blind LoveBlind Love is Wilkie Collins’s final novel. Although he did not live to complete the work, he left detailed plans for the last third of this absorbingly plotted novel which were faithfully executed by his colleague, the popular author Walter Besant. The novel is set during the Irish Land War of the early 1880s and tells the story of Iris Henley, an independent young woman who marries the “wild” Lord Harry Norland, a member of an Irish secret society, and becomes unhappily drawn into a conspiracy plot. The Broadview edition of Blind Love includes a critical introduction and primary source materials that address the novel’s focus on movements for Irish independence. Appendices include newspaper accounts of Ireland during the Land War and of the fraud case on which Collins based his story, articles reacting to Collins’s sudden death, Punch cartoons depicting the English attitudes toward the Irish, and contemporary reviews. |
Contents
Acknowledgments | 7 |
A Brief Chronology | 48 |
Blind Love | 55 |
CONTENTS PROLOGUE | 63 |
THE STORY | 89 |
FIRST PERIOD CHAPTER I THE SOUR FRENCH WINE | 100 |
THE MAN SHE REFUSED | 104 |
THE REGISTERED PACKET | 109 |
PROFESSIONAL ASSISTANCE | 180 |
MR HENLEY AT HOME | 184 |
FIRST SUSPICIONS OF IRIS | 188 |
THE PARTING SCENE | 192 |
THE FATAL WORDS | 196 |
THIRD PERIOD XXIII NEWS OF IRIS | 201 |
LORD HARRYS HONEYMOON | 204 |
THE DOCTOR IN DIFFICULTIES | 207 |
MOUNTJOY LOSES | 114 |
MOUNTJOY PLAYS A NEW CARD | 119 |
MOUNTJOY WINS | 126 |
DOCTORING THE DOCTOR | 131 |
HER FATHERS MESSAGE | 138 |
MR VIMPANY ON INTOXICATION | 142 |
THE MOCKERY OF DECEIT | 146 |
MRS VIMPANYS FAREWELL | 148 |
LORD HARRYS DEFENCE | 154 |
SECOND PERIOD XIII IRIS AT HOME | 159 |
THE LADYS MAID | 166 |
MR HENLEYS TEMPER | 170 |
THE DOCTOR IN FULL DRESS | 172 |
ON HAMPSTEAD HEATH | 175 |
LONDON AND PARIS | 212 |
THE BRIDE AT HOME | 216 |
THE MAID AND THE KEYHOLE | 221 |
THE CONQUEST OF MR VIMPANY | 224 |
SAXON AND CELT | 227 |
THE SCHOOL FOR HUSBANDS | 231 |
GOODBYE TO IRIS | 234 |
Reaction to the Death of Wilkie Collins | 393 |
Contemporary Reviews of Collinss Work | 399 |
Horace Pyms Notes on the Von Scheurer Case | 417 |
Excerpts from Collinss Plans for Blind Love | 431 |
The Duties of the Ladys Maid | 459 |