Fiction · 1875
The Law and the Lady
Days into her marriage, Valeria Woodville discovers that her husband concealed his own name from her — and that he was tried, years before, for poisoning his first wife, and left free only under Scots law's third verdict, Not Proven, neither innocent nor guilty. Determined to clear him outright, she turns amateur detective and reopens the case herself.
Wilkie Collins published The Law and the Lady in 1875, drawing on the distinctive Scottish "Not Proven" verdict — unavailable under English law — as the engine of a mystery plot in the vein of his earlier The Moonstone (1868).
This Bibliomancer edition presents the complete text.
Contents
- Note — Addressed to the Reader
- Part I — Paradise Lost
- Chapter I — The Bride’s Mistake
- Chapter II — The Bride’s Thoughts
- Chapter III — Ramsgate Sands
- Chapter IV — On the Way Home
- Chapter V — The Landlady’s Discovery
- Chapter VI — My Own Discovery
- Chapter VII — On the Way to the Major
- Chapter VIII — The Friend of the Women
- Chapter IX — The Defeat of the Major
- Chapter X — The Search
- Chapter XI — The Return to Life
- Chapter XII — The Scotch Verdict
- Chapter XIII — The Man’s Decision
- Chapter XIV — The Woman’s Answer
- Part II — Paradise Regained
- Chapter XV — The Story of the Trial. The Preliminaries
- Chapter XVI — First Question—Did the Woman Die Poisoned?
- Chapter XVII — Second Question—Who Poisoned Her?
- Chapter XVIII — Third Question—What Was His Motive?
- Chapter XIX — The Evidence for the Defense
- Chapter XX — The End of the Trial
- Chapter XXI — I See My Way
- Chapter XXII — The Major Makes Difficulties
- Chapter XXIII — My Mother-in-Law Surprises Me
- Chapter XXIV — Miserrimus Dexter—First View
- Chapter XXV — Miserrimus Dexter—Second View
- Chapter XXVI — More of My Obstinacy
- Chapter XXVII — Mr. Dexter at Home
- Chapter XXVIII — In the Dark
- Chapter XXIX — In the Light
- Chapter XXX — The Indictment of Mrs. Beauly
- Chapter XXXI — The Defense of Mrs. Beauly
- Chapter XXXII — A Specimen of My Wisdom
- Chapter XXXIII — A Specimen of My Folly
- Chapter XXXIV — Gleninch
- Chapter XXXV — Mr. Playmore’s Prophecy
- Chapter XXXVI — Ariel
- Chapter XXXVII — At the Bedside
- Chapter XXXVIII — On the Journey Back
- Chapter XXXIX — On the Way to Dexter
- Chapter XL — Nemesis at Last
- Chapter XLI — Mr. Playmore in a New Character
- Chapter XLII — More Surprises
- Chapter XLIII — At Last!
- Chapter XLIV — Our New Honeymoon
- Chapter XLV — The Dust-Heap Disturbed
- Chapter XLVI — The Crisis Deferred
- Chapter XLVII — The Wife’s Confession
- Chapter XLVIII — What Else Could I Do?
- Chapter XLIX — Past and Future
- Chapter L — The Last of the Story
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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.
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About the author
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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