About the Book
Arthur Hopkins, (1848-1930) born only eight years after Hardy, lived to the age of 82. Whereas Gerard Manley Hopkins, his famous older brother, was born in 1844, Arthur, son of a prosperous marine insurance agent, was born on 30th December, 1848, in Stratford, London. Whereas Gerard went on to Balliol College, Oxford, and joined the Puseyites, Arthur was educated at Lancing College in Sussex, and, after graduation, worked in a London office before entering the Royal Academy schools in 1872. He exhibited in various London galleries, chiefly that of the Royal Water-Colour Society and that of the Royal Academy, but over twenty-five years also contributed illustrations to The Graphic, Punch, and The Illustrated London News. He was made an Associate of the Royal Water-Colour Society in 1877, and a member in 1896. His brothers were also graphic artists: Everard (1860-1928) painted in watercolours as well; Edward was a black-and-white illustrator; and Gerard Manley was a fine draftsman (as well as a renowned poet). Arthur Hopkins' genre scenes of country life are in much the style of another Hardy illustrator, Helen Patterson Allingham. He was a member of the rising generation of illustrators influenced by du Maurier and William Small, and, as Forrest Reid remarks, was "a good draughtsman, with "a strong dramatic sense, to which is added a sense of character" (269). On the staff of The Illustrated London News in 1873, he redrew William Simpson's drawings of the Madoc Indian War. As a member M. E. Braddon's staff at The Belgravia, he illustrated James Payn's By Proxy (1877 and Confidential Agent (1879), Wilkie Collins's Haunted Hotel (1878), Charles Gibbon's Queen of the Meadow (1879), and Justin McCarthy's Donna Quixote (1879).... William Wilkie Collins (8 January 1824 - 23 September 1889) was an English novelist, playwright, and short story writer. His best-known works are The Woman in White (1859), No Name (1862), Armadale (1866), and The Moonstone (1868). The last is considered the first modern English detective novel. Born into the family of painter William Collins in London, he lived with his family in Italy and France as a child and learned French and Italian. He worked as a clerk for a tea merchant. After his first novel, Antonina, was published in 1850, he met Charles Dickens, who became a close friend, mentor and collaborator. Some of Collins's works were first published in Dickens' journals All the Year Round and Household Words and the two collaborated on drama and fiction. Collins published his best known works in the 1860s, achieved financial stability and an international reputation. During that time he began suffering from gout. After taking opium for the pain, he developed an addiction. During the 1870s and 1880s the quality of his writing declined along with his health.Collins was critical of the institution of marriage and never married; 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.Collins was born at 11 New Cavendish Street, Marylebone, London, the son of a well-known Royal Academician landscape painter, William Collins and his wife, Harriet Geddes. Named after his father, he swiftly became known by his second name, which honoured his godfather, David Wilkie. The family moved to Pond Street, Hampstead, in 1826. In 1828 Collins's brother Charles Allston Collins was born. Between 1829 and 1830, the Collins family moved twice, first to Hampstead Square and then to Porchester Terrace, Bayswater.Wilkie and Charles received their early education from their mother at home. The Collins family was deeply religious, and Collins's mother enforced strict church attendance on her sons, which Wilkie disliked.In 1835, Collins began attending school at the Maida Vale academy.....
