Wilkie Collins Again: Armadale
I need to get something off my chest, but first I want to say something topical:
Wilkie Collins wrote interesting secondary characters. I mentioned the maddening Miss Clack previously, and in Armadale, I have a few more to add to the list. The invalid, pitiful but for her outrageous scheming. The priest who shows nearly the only sense in the whole book. The man so broken by circumstances and mistakes that he latches on where he obviously doesn’t belong.
And the man’s villains are outstanding. Count Fosco in The Woman In White is wonderful, and Lydia Gwilt in Armadale is a whole different turn of amazing.
Okay, now I want to vent: