William Baker is distinguished university professor emeritus at Northern Illinois University and Visiting Professor at Zhejiang University, PRChina. The author or co-author of over 150 refereed articles and 31 books, he has written extensively on Pinter, Stoppard and Kops and other Anglo-Jewish writers including many contributions to The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. His other work includes books on George Eliot, Wilkie Collins, Jane Austen and William Shakespeare. He edits George Eliot-George Henry Lewes Studies and co-edits The Year's Work in English Studies.

Preface
Introduction
Wilkie Collins and His Books
The 1890 Dispersion of Wilkie Collins's Library
The Composition of Wilkie Collins's Library
Conclusion
Reconstruction of Wilkie Collins's Library
Appendix
Index

Wilkie Collins (1824-1889) is a major British Victorian novelist, dramatist, short story writer, and journalist. He is best known today as the author of ^IThe Moonstone,^R which T.S. Eliot called the first and greatest English detective novel. He has been the subject of two recent biographies, and a revival of interest in his works is now under way. In particular, there is growing concern with his intellectual development, as witnessed by the 1999 publication of his collected letters. This reconstruction of his library offers a thorough analysis of the books he owned and his response to them and thus illuminates Collins as a reader and writer.
The book begins with a narrative discussion of the contents of Collins's library and its auction. This introductory essay sheds light on the types of books he owned, his use of those texts in his writings, and the dispersion of his collection in 1890. The bulk of the volume provides annotated entries for each item from his library. Entries include publication and bibliographic information, descriptions from sale catalogs, information about the author of the item, citations of the book or author from Collins's letters, and information on the present location or subsequent history of the item. An appendix catalogs paintings and artwork in Collins's possession at the time of his death.