William Wilkie Collins (1824-1889) was an English novelist, playwright, and writer of short stories. He was hugely popular in his time, and wrote 27 novels, more than 50 short stories, at least 15 plays, and over 100 pieces of non-fiction work. His best-known works are The Woman in White (1860), The Moonstone (1868), Armadale (1866) and No Name (1862). His works were classified at the time as 'sensation novels', a genre seen nowadays as the precursor to detective fiction and suspense fiction. He also wrote penetratingly on the plight of women and on the social and domestic issues of his time. His novel, No Name combined social commentary - the absurdity of the law as it applied to children of unmarried parents - with a densely-plotted revenge thriller. Amongst his other works are: Basil (1852), Hide and Seek (1854), After the Dark (1856), The Frozen Deep (1857), The Queen of Hearts (1859), Man and Wife (1870), The New Magdalen (1873), The Law and the Lady (1875), The Two Destinies (1876) and A Rogue's Life (1879).

You’ve gotta love those travel documentaries with celebrities awkwardly trying to make their interactions with locals seem impromptu and organic. Perhaps it’s best to let the writers express the escapism of travel. And why not leave travel writing to Wilkie Collins, the star of Victorian-era mystery and thriller novels? In "Rambles Beyond Railways", Collins exchanges his London ale for a Cornish pasty when he writes of his travels around Cornwall. While the Victorians were crazy about building railways, rail access didn’t extend to the whole of Cornwall. Instead, Collins goes by foot across Cornwall with his friend, Henry Brandling, who provided illustrations for the original publication. True to his love of the sensational, Collins explores the enchanting Cornish locations whence stories of ghostly shipwrecks and semi-mythical kings originated. Get lost in Collins’s Cornwall instead of Jeremy Clarkson’s ill-fitting jeans. London-born Wilke Collins (1824-1889) became known in Victorian England for his novels and plays, sometimes writing together with Charles Dickens. His most famous works, "The Woman in White" (1859) and "The Moonstone" (1868), are examples of the first modern detective novels.

Rambles Beyond Railways; or, Notes in Cornwall taken A-foot by Wilkie Collins At that time, the title attached to these pages was strictly descriptive of the state of the county, when my companion and I walked through it. But when, little more than a year afterwards, a second edition of this volume was called for, the all-conquering railway had invaded Cornwall in the interval, and had practically contradicted me on my own title-page. We are delighted to publish this classic book as part of our extensive Classic Library collection. Many of the books in our collection have been out of print for decades, and therefore have not been accessible to the general public. The aim of our publishing program is to facilitate rapid access to this vast reservoir of literature, and our view is that this is a significant literary work, which deserves to be brought back into print after many decades. The contents of the vast majority of titles in the Classic Library have been scanned from the original works. To ensure a high quality product, each title has been meticulously hand curated by our staff. Our philosophy has been guided by a desire to provide the reader with a book that is as close as possible to ownership of the original work. We hope that you will enjoy this wonderful classic work, and that for you it becomes an enriching experience.

Many popular nineteenth-century writers published travelogues and essay collections recounting their journeys at home and abroad, but few pulled off this feat with the polish and panache that beloved novelist Wilkie Collins brings to the task. Rambles Beyond Railways recounts a walking tour of Cornwall that Collins and a friend took together, and the vivid writing and charming observations are served up in the author's inimitably warm and engaging style.

A travel book narrating Collins's 1850 walking tour of Cornwall with his artist friend, Henry Brandling. Published in 1851 and dedicated to the Duke of Northumberland. In those days 'even the railway stops short at Plymouth' and the travellers have to sail to their first destination at St Germains.