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Wilkie Collins was an English novelist, playwright, and short story writer. Armadale is a novel by Collins, first published in 1864-66. When the elderly Allan Armadale makes a terrible confession on his death-bed, he has little idea of the repercussions to come, for the secret he reveals involves the mysterious Lydia Gwilt: flamed-hair temptress, bigamist, laudanum addict and husband-poisoner. This traditional melodrama also considers the modern theme of the role of women in society.

This carefully crafted ebook: "Armadale (Mystery Thriller Classic)" is formatted for your eReader with a functional and detailed table of contents. Armadale is a mystery novel. The novel has a convoluted plot about two distant cousins both named Allan Armadale. The father of one had murdered the father of the other (the two fathers are also named Allan Armadale). The story starts with a deathbed confession by the murderer in the form of a letter to be given to his baby son when he grows up. Wilkie Collins (1824 - 1889) was an English novelist, playwright, and author of short stories. His best-known works are The Woman in White, No Name, Armadale, and The Moonstone.

When the elderly Allan Armadale makes a terrible confession on his death-bed, he has little idea of the repercussions to come, for the secret he reveals involves the mysterious Lydia Gwilt: fl amed-hair temptress, bigamist, laudanum addict and husbandpoisoner. This traditional melodrama also considers the modern theme of the role of women in society.

Will their secrets be the death of them? Even her family's ball cannot distract Lady Cassandra Eastham from the very serious business of her life-- secretly translating highly confidential documents for agencies of the British and Portuguese governments. When an important message arrives on the night of the ball, Cassandra, eager to read it, escapes to the seclusion of a dark corner. There she is interrupted by Weston Barrington, the Earl of Armadale and a hero in the Peninsula War. Although Lord Barrington appears eager to resume the life of an English gentleman, Cassandra instinctively distrusts him and refuses to be seduced by his dashing looks. Lord Armadale--West to his friends--believes there is a spy in the Eastman household, but is drawn to Lady Cassandra despite his determination to remain a bachelor. When a brutally injured young woman arrives at Eastham House and dies in the marble foyer, the incident unites him and Cassandra in a dangerous partnership. The dead woman cannot be an accidental target for murder. Despite being dressed in rags, she looks enough like Lady Cassandra to be her twin sister. And Cassandra might be the murderer's next victim. As Cassandra and West work together to uncover the woman's identity, West comes to realize his responses to his beautiful partner have more to do with desire than detection and deceit. Will he unravel the mystery before he loses the lady with whom he is quickly falling in love? Sharon Sobel is the author of ten historical and two contemporary romance novels, and served as Secretary and Chapter Liaison of Romance Writers of America. Her short story, The Jilt, has been selected for inclusion in the second RWA anthology of romance fiction. She has a PhD in English Language and Literature from Brandeis University and is an English professor at a Connecticut college, where she co-chaired the Connecticut Writers' Conference for five years. An eighteenth century New England farmhouse, where Sharon and her husband raised their three children, has provided inspiration for either the period or the setting for all of her books.

Wilkie Collins has given us in this novel one more instance of his strange capacity for weaving extra plots. Armadale, from beginning to end, is a lurid labyrinth of improbabilities. It produces upon the reader the effect of a literary nightmare. Miss Gwilt, Mrs. Oldershaw, and Doctor Le Doux of the Sanatorium are enough to make any story in which they figure disagreeably sensational; and Mr. Collins seizes every possible opportunity of working up the horror they inspire to the highest point. If it were the object of art to make one's audience uncomfortable without letting them know why, Mr. Wilkie Collins would be beyond all doubt a consummate artist. To the accomplishment of this object he devotes great ingenuity, a curious genius for arranging and contriving mysteries, and a good deal of what may be called galvanic power. There is a sort of unearthly and deadly look about the heroes and heroines of his narrative, and though it is necessary for the purpose of the plot that they should keep moving, we feel, that every, one of their motions is due, not to a natural process, but to the sheer force and energy of the author's will. They dodge each other up and down the stage after the manner of puppets at a puppet-show, and after watching their twistings and turnings from first to last we come away full of admiration of the strings and the unseen fingers that are directing everything from behind the curtain. An ordinary novelist would let the villains murder their intended victim at once, and have done with it. Not so Mr. Wilkie Collins. A hundred agencies are brought into play to suspend our interest through this long volume. Spies, detective officers, lawyers, and two or three virtuous and watchful amateurs counterplot day and night against the villains. Each dogs the other till he is tired, and when he is tired the other dogs him. They overhear each other's secrets from behind trees, or lurk unsuspected under windows, keeping diaries sometimes of their proceedings. To heighten the absorbing interest of this contest of intelligences, railways, telegraphy, post-offices, presentiments, and dreams are freely used ; and the wonders of science do duty side by side with the marvels of the supernatural world. As a whole the effect is clever, powerful, and striking, though grotesque, monotonous, and, to use a French word, bizarre. There can be no mistake about the talent displayed. What strikes one as wanting is that humor which is the salt of all great genius, and that sense of proportion and beauty which is the soul of all real art.