No Name by Wilkie Collins — Bibliomancer edition cover
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Fiction · 1862

No Name

Wilkie Collins

Reading time
about 19 h
Length
264,690 words · 947 pages
Structure
111 chapters · 1 front-matter section
Language
English
Era
Victorian

Magdalen and Norah Vanstone are grown, comfortable and about to be well married when their parents die within weeks of each other and a lawyer's letter destroys them: their father's will is void, their parents were not married until months before the end, and in the eyes of the law the sisters have no name, no claim and no money. Norah submits and becomes a governess. Magdalen does not. Aided by the magnificently plausible swindler Captain Wragge, she sets out to get the inheritance back by any means available to a handsome young woman with a talent for acting — including marrying the sickly cousin who now holds it, under a face and a name not her own.

Wilkie Collins published No Name as a serial in Dickens's All the Year Round in 1862 and 1863, between The Woman in White and Armadale. It is built in eight Scenes separated by epistolary interludes, and it withholds almost nothing from the reader: the suspense is not in what Magdalen will do but in whether she can stop.

This Bibliomancer edition presents the complete text, including Collins's preface.

Contents

  1. Preface
  2. No Name
  3. Chapter I
  4. Chapter II
  5. Chapter III
  6. Chapter IV
  7. Chapter V
  8. Chapter VI
  9. Chapter VII
  10. Chapter VIII
  11. Chapter IX
  12. Chapter X
  13. Chapter XI
  14. Chapter XII
  15. Chapter XIII
  16. Chapter XIV
  17. Chapter XV
  18. Between the Scenes. Progress of the Story Through the Post
  19. Chapter I — From Norah Vanstone to Mr. Pendril
  20. Chapter II — From Miss Garth to Mr. Pendril
  21. Chapter III — From Magdalen to Norah (inclosed in the preceding Letter)
  22. Chapter IV — From Sergeant Bulmer (of the Detective Police) to Mr. Pendril
  23. Chapter V — Anonymous Letter addressed to Mr. Pendril
  24. Chapter I
  25. Chapter II
  26. Chapter III
  27. Between the Scenes. Chronicle of Events: Preserved in Captain Wragge’s Despatch Box
  28. Chapter I — Chronicle for October, 1846
  29. Chapter II — Chronicle for November
  30. Chapter III — Chronicle for December. First Fortnight
  31. Chapter IV — Chronicle for December. Second Fortnight
  32. Chapter V — Chronicle for January, 1847
  33. Chapter VI — Chronicle for February
  34. Chapter VII — Chronicle for March
  35. Chapter VIII — Chronicle for April and May
  36. Chapter IX — Chronicle for June
  37. Chapter I
  38. Chapter II
  39. Chapter III
  40. Chapter IV
  41. Between the Scenes. Progress of the Story Through the Post
  42. Chapter I — Extract from the Advertising Columns of “The Times.”
  43. Chapter II — From Captain Wragge to Magdalen
  44. Chapter III — From Norah to Magdalen
  45. Chapter IV — From Miss Garth to Magdalen
  46. Chapter V — From Francis Clare, Jun., to Magdalen
  47. Chapter VI — From Francis Clare, Sen., to Magdalen
  48. Chapter VII — From Mrs. Wragge to her Husband
  49. Chapter VIII — From Norah to Magdalen
  50. Chapter IX — From Magdalen to Norah
  51. Chapter X — From Magdalen to Miss Garth
  52. Chapter XI — From Magdalen to Captain Wragge
  53. Chapter XII — From Captain Wragge to Magdalen
  54. Chapter XIII
  55. Chapter I
  56. Chapter II
  57. Chapter III
  58. Chapter IV
  59. Chapter V
  60. Chapter VI
  61. Chapter VII
  62. Chapter VIII
  63. Chapter IX
  64. Chapter X
  65. Chapter XI
  66. Chapter XII
  67. Chapter XIII
  68. Chapter XIV
  69. Between the Scenes. Progress of the Story Through the Post
  70. Chapter I — From George Bartram to Noel Vanstone
  71. Chapter II — From Norah Vanstone to Miss Garth
  72. Chapter III — From Mr. John Loscombe (Solicitor) to George Bartram, Esq
  73. Chapter IV — From Norah Vanstone to Miss Garth
  74. Chapter V — From Mrs. Lecount to Mr. de Bleriot, General Agent, London
  75. Chapter VI — From Mr. de Bleriot to Mrs. Lecount
  76. Chapter VII — From Mr. Pendril to Norah Vanstone
  77. Chapter VIII — From Norah Vanstone to Mr. Pendril
  78. Chapter IX — From Mr. de Bleriot to Mrs. Lecount
  79. Chapter X — From Miss Garth to Mr. Pendril
  80. Chapter XI — From Mrs. Lecount to Mr. de Bleriot
  81. Chapter XII — From Mr. Pendril to Miss Garth
  82. Chapter XIII — From Mr. de Bleriot to Mrs. Lecount
  83. Chapter XIV — From Mrs. Lecount to Mr. de Bleriot
  84. Chapter I
  85. Chapter II
  86. Chapter III
  87. Between the Scenes. Progress of the Story Through the Post
  88. Chapter I — From Mrs. Noel Vanstone to Mr. Loscombe
  89. Chapter II — From Mr. Loscombe to Mrs. Noel Vanstone
  90. Chapter III — From Mrs. Noel Vanstone to Miss Garth
  91. Chapter IV — From Mr. Loscombe to Mrs. Noel Vanstone
  92. Chapter V — From Mr. Pendril to Miss Garth
  93. Chapter VI — From Mr. Loscombe to Mrs. Noel Vanstone
  94. Chapter VII — From Mrs. Noel Vanstone to Mr. Loscombe
  95. Chapter VIII — From Mr. Loscombe to Mrs. Noel Vanstone
  96. Chapter IX — From Mrs. Noel Vanstone to Mr. Loscombe
  97. Chapter I
  98. Chapter II
  99. Chapter II — From Mr. Pendril to Miss Garth
  100. Chapter III
  101. Chapter IV — From Mrs. Drake to Admiral Bartram
  102. Chapter I
  103. Chapter II
  104. Chapter III
  105. Chapter IV
  106. Chapter II — From George Bartram to Miss Garth
  107. Chapter III — From Miss Garth to George Bartram
  108. Chapter IV — From Mrs. Drake to George Bartram
  109. Chapter V — From George Bartram to Miss Garth
  110. Chapter VI — From Mr. Loscombe to Mrs. Noel Vanstone
  111. Chapter VII — From George Bartram to Miss Garth
  112. Chapter VIII — From Mr. Loscombe to Mrs. Noel Vanstone
  113. Chapter IX — From Mrs. Ruddock (Lodging-house Keeper) to Mr. Loscombe
  114. Chapter X — From Mr. Loscombe to Mrs. Ruddock
  115. The Last Scene.: Aaron’s Buildings
  116. Chapter I
  117. Chapter II
  118. Chapter III
  119. Chapter IV

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About this edition

The text is free of copyright. This edition was prepared from an authoritative digitisation, processed by Bibliomancer under its own review protocol; every automated correction is recorded in its transformation log. Rights assessed for CA, EU, GB, US.

Source mind

About the author

Wilkie Collins

1824–1889 · Victorian

Wilkie Collins (1824–1889) was born in Marylebone, London, the son of the landscape painter William Collins, and spent much of his boyhood in Italy and France before working as a clerk for a tea merchant and studying law at Lincoln's Inn, to which he was called in 1851 without ever practicing. His first novel, Antonina, appeared in 1850; the next year he met Charles Dickens, and the two became close friends and frequent collaborators, co-writing several Christmas Numbers of Household Words and All the Year Round together, among them The Wreck of the Golden Mary (1856), The Perils of Certain English Prisoners (1857) and, in 1867, No Thoroughfare. Collins's own novels, many first serialized in Dickens's magazines, include The Woman in White (1859–60), No Name (1862), Armadale (1866) and The Moonstone (1868), often ranked among the first detective novels in English. He never married but lived for decades with Caroline Graves and her daughter, while also maintaining a second household with Martha Rudd, by whom he had three children; gout and a lifelong dependence on laudanum for the pain marked his later years. He died in London.

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