MISS BERTHA AND THE YANKEE

This early work by Wilkie Collins was originally published in 1877.Born in Marylebone, London in 1824, Collins' family enrolled him atthe Maida Hill Academy in 1835, but then took him to France andItaly with them between 1836 and 1838. Returning to England,Collins attended Cole's boarding school, and completed hiseducation in 1841, after which he was apprenticed to the teamerchants Antrobus & Co. in the Strand. In 1846, Collins becamea law student at Lincoln's Inn, and was called to the bar in 1851,although he never practiced. It was in 1848, a year after the deathof his father, that he published his first book, The Memoirs of theLife of William Collins, Esq., R.A., to good reviews. The 1860s sawCollins' creative high-point, and it was during this decade that heachieved fame and critical acclaim, with his four major novels, TheWoman in White (1860), No Name (1862), Armadale (1866) and TheMoonstone (1868).