WILKIE COLLINS'S NOVELS.
HARPER'S
ILLUSTRATED LIBRARY EDITION.
12mo, Cloth, $1 50 per Volume.
WITH STEEL PORTRAIT OF THE AUTHOR BY HALPIN.
In view of the visit of Mr. Wilkie Collins to this country, Messrs. Harper & Brothers have the pleasure of announcing a New Library Edition of the Works of this popular novelist, embellished with many illustrations by English and American artists—some of which have been drawn expressly for this edition—and with a New Portrait of the author, engraved on Steel by Halpin. One volume will be issued each month until the completion of the series. The convenient size of the volumes will commend this tasteful edition to the favor of American readers, among whom the author of "No Name," "The Woman in White," "Man and Wife," and "The New Magdalen," is no less widely known than among his own countrymen.
Wilkie Collins has no living superior in the art of constructing a story. Others may equal if not surpass him in the delineation of character, or in the use of a story for the development of social theories, or for the redress of a wrong against humanity and civilization; but in his own domain he stands alone, without a rival. * * * He holds that "the main element in the attraction of all stories is the interest of curiosity and the excitement of surprise." Other writers had discovered this before Collins; but, recognizing the clumsiness of the contrivances in use by inferior authors, he essays, by artistic and conscientious use of the same materials and similar devices, to captivate his readers.—N. Y. Evening Post.
We can not call to mind any novelist or romancer of past times whose constructive powers fairly can be placed above his. He is a literary artist, and a great one too, and he always takes his readers with him.—Boston Traveller.