The Lady of Glenwith Grange

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"The Lady of Glenwith Grange"
Author Wilkie Collins
Country United Kingdom
Genre(s) Mystery fiction
Published in After Dark
Publisher Smith, Elder & Co.
Media type Print
Publication date 1856

"The Lady of Glenwith Grange" is a novella by the nineteenth-century English writer Wilkie Collins. The story was first published as one of six short stories by Collins in a collection entitled After Dark , published in 1856; it was his first collection of short stories. [1] [2]

Novella written, fictional, prose narrative normally longer than a short story but shorter than a novel

A novella is a text of written, fictional, narrative prose normally longer than a short story but shorter than a novel, somewhere between 17,500 and 40,000 words.

Wilkie Collins 19th-century British novelist and playwright

William Wilkie Collins was an English novelist, playwright, and short story writer, best known for The Woman in White (1859), No Name (1862), Armadale (1866) and The Moonstone (1868). The last has been called the first modern English detective novel. Born to the family of painter William Collins in London, he grew up in Italy and France, learning French and Italian. He began work as a clerk for a tea merchant. After his first novel, Antonina, appeared in 1850, he met Charles Dickens, who became a close friend and mentor. Some of Collins's works appeared first in Dickens's journals All the Year Round and Household Words and they collaborated on drama and fiction. Collins published his best known works in the 1860s, achieving financial stability and an international following. However, he began suffering from gout. Taking opium for the pain developed into an addiction. In the 1870s and 1880s the quality of his writing declined along with his health. Collins was critical of the institution of marriage: he split his time between Caroline Graves, except for a two-year separation, and his common-law wife Martha Rudd, with whom he had three children.

After Dark is a collection of six short stories by Wilkie Collins, first published in 1856. It was the author's first collection of short stories. Five of the stories were previously published in Household Words, a magazine edited by Charles Dickens.

Contents

In the story, a French aristocrat living a peaceful married life in the English countryside is revealed to be an imposter.

After Dark

The stories in After Dark are linked by a narrative framework. At the beginning and end of the book are "Leaves from Leah's Diary": William Kerby, a travelling portrait-painter, is in danger of losing his sight, and is required by his doctor to cease painting for a while. His wife Leah realizes that destitution threatens. He is a good story-teller, and Leah has the idea of writing down his stories and publishing them.

All the other stories were first published in Household Words , and for this volume a prologue was added to each story. This story, entitled "The Angler's Story of the Lady of Glenwith Grange" for this collection, similarly has a prologue: Garthwaite, a gentleman-farmer who has commissioned Kerby to paint a picture of his bull, takes Kerby fishing while the bull is in an unmanageable temper. They come near Glenwith Grange; Garthwaite knows Miss Ida Welwyn, a middle-aged woman who lives there, and they visit the house. Kerby is impressed by the melancholy nature of Miss Welwyn and the out-of-date interior. Garthwaite, as he is angling after their visit, tells Kerby the story of the Welwyn family.

<i>Household Words</i> English weekly magazine edited by Charles Dickens in the 1850s

Household Words was an English weekly magazine edited by Charles Dickens in the 1850s. It took its name from the line in Shakespeare's Henry V: "Familiar in his mouth as household words."

Story summary

Since childhood, Ida is devoted to looking after her younger sister Rosamond, as she had promised to their mother before she died, soon after Rosamond was born. Their father is wealthy, and some years later the family spend a winter in the high society of Paris. Rosamond becomes engaged to Baron Franval, a French aristocrat. He has recently returned to France after several years abroad, and has received an inheritance. Ida, who still puts Rosamond's interests before all else, dislikes and distrusts the Baron, although he has an apparently pleasant personality.

The married life of the Baron and Rosamond at Glenwith Grange is peaceful; however when a French provincial newspaper, which he receives regularly, fails to arrive one day his mood changes, and he leaves to make enquiries. While he is away a visitor arrives, received by Ida who lives with the couple; he is an agent of the French police, and has withheld the newspaper the Baron was expecting; the paper informed that Baron Franval has arrived in France from overseas. The French police have ascertained that this supposed imposter is genuine, and that Rosamond's husband is probably Monbrun, a fraudster who resembles Franval.

The identity of Rosamond's husband is proved soon afterwards: he returns and, while asleep, the French agent finds the branded mark that Monbrun was given when he was a convict. The shock puts Rosamond, who is pregnant, into premature labour; the child is born with mental disabilities, and Rosamond dies. Ida remains to look after the child.

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References

  1. After Dark Wilkie Collins Information Pages. Accessed 7 October 2014.
  2. The Angler's Story of the Lady of Glenwith Grange title listing at the Internet Speculative Fiction Database