Sunday, June 22, 2008

I started reading Wilkie Collin's Armadale today. I've got to page 56 and already the plot is bursting with murder, shipwreck, fraud and impersonation, deception, syphilis, miscegenation, and unwilling witnesses to a last will and testament. This was written in 1866! I cannot imagine the effect this must have had on the readers of the time.