File Updated: 01/04/00

New Crime & Mystery Fiction Titles From Penguin Classic Crime JULY-SEPT 1998

Wilkie Collins The Law and the Lady Pbk published September 1998 by Penguin Classic Crime at £6.99 ISBN: 0140436073
Edited with an introduction by David Skilton
'Be pleased then to remember... that the actions of human beings are not invariably governed by the laws of pure reason'
Thus warns Wilkie Collins in his prefatory note to this late novel which displays his continued fascination with crime and abnormal psychology that had become his hallmark. The Lady, Valeria Macallen, confronts the Law when she turns detective in a quest to uncover the truth about the mysterious events surrounding the poisoning of her husband's first wife. This involves her in a thrilling plot of madness and marital conflict, which implicitly challenges the dominant conceptions of legality and identity.
'Among male novelists of the period, Collins took an unsurpassed interest in women characters, and particularly in their intellects and ambitions, and the social restrictions imposed on them', writes David Skilton in his introduction to this new Penguin Classic.

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