Wilkie Collins (1824-1889) is a major British Victorian novelist, dramatist, short story writer, and journalist. He is best known today as the author of ^IThe Moonstone, ^R which T.S. Eliot called the first and greatest English detective novel. He has been the subject of two recent biographies, and a revival of interest in his works is now under way. In particular, there is growing concern with his intellectual development, as witnessed by the 1999 publication of his collected letters. This reconstruction of his library offers a thorough analysis of the books he owned and his response to them a.