8th January: Happy birthday Wilkie Collins

January 8th is the birthdate of Wilkie Collins, author and playwright, who was born 8 January 1824 (190 years ago).

Here are some things you may not know about him:

1. His best-known works are The Woman in White, The Moonstone and No Name.
2. The Moonstone is said to be the first English detective novel.
3. Wilkie is his middle name, his first name is William, after his father, the painter William Collins.
4. If it wasn't for the school bully, Collins may never have become a writer! The bully would force Collins to tell a story each night before he was allowed to go to sleep. This awakened Collins to his talent for and enjoyment of, storytelling.
5. His father wanted him to become a clergyman, but Collins had no interest in the church as a career. So his father suggested he study law. Wilkie wasn't interested in the law as a career either, but completed the course. While he never practised as a lawyer, he did use his legal knowledge in his crime novels.
6. He was a good friend of Charles Dickens.
7. His younger brother Charles married Dickens' daughter, Kate.
8. Collins was addicted to laudanum, which he first started using to ease the pain caused by gout.
9. His personal life was complicated. He moved in with Caroline Graves, a widow with a daughter. Collins treated the daughter as if she were his own and paid for her education. He didn't believe in marriage, and had an affair with a woman named Martha Rudd which resulted in two biological daughters and a son. Caroline left him to marry someone else; but after two years left her husband and went back to Collins. For the rest of his life, he divided his time between his two families.
10. His 1854 novel Hide and Seek contained one of the first portrayals of a deaf character in English literature.