{"product_id":"9780385537391","title":"Wilkie Collins: A Brief Life","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eA gripping short biography of the extraordinary Wilkie Collins, author of \u003ci\u003eThe Moonstone\u003c\/i\u003e and \u003ci\u003eThe Woman in White\u003c\/i\u003e, two early masterpieces of mystery and detection.\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e     Short and oddly built, with a head too big for his body, extremely nearsighted, unable to stay still, dressed in colorful clothes, Wilkie Collins looked distinctly strange. But he was nonetheless a charmer, befriended by the great, loved by children, irresistibly attractive to women—and avidly read by generations of readers. Peter Ackroyd follows his hero, \"the sweetest-tempered of all the Victorian novelists,\" from Collins' childhood as the son of a well-known artist to his struggling beginnings as a writer, his years of fame, and his lifelong friendship with that other great London chronicler, Charles Dickens. In addition to his enduring masterpieces, \u003ci\u003eThe Moonstone\u003c\/i\u003e—often called the first true detective novel—and the sensational \u003ci\u003eThe Woman in White\u003c\/i\u003e, he produced an intriguing array of lesser known works. Told with Ackroyd's inimitable verve, this is a ravishingly entertaining life of a great storyteller, full of surprises, rich in humor and sympathetic understanding.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47012433789168,"sku":"9780385537391","price":25.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0737\/7593\/9824\/files\/9780385537391_p0.jpg?v=1763695213","url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/9780385537391","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}