By Jill Lowe
Photo courtesy Susan Hanes
In Kensal Green Cemetery in London they met for a toast on January 8, 2024. This, the 200th anniversary of the birth of Wilkie Collins, at his grave, Susan Hanes from Chicago met fellow Wilkie-ites and longtime friends Paul Lewis and Andrew Gasson.
Does the name Wilkie Collins roll off one’s tongue with familiarity?
Maybe not so much today by the common man in the USA, but in the Victorian literary circles, and to-day in the UK – yes indeed, with Wilkie having written some 58 books, and being credited with writing the first detective novel – a novel that runs on secrets and the uncovering of them. Among the most well- known of Collins’s is The Moonstone of 1868 which has it all: suspicious details, dirty linen, with no-one above suspicion – and the search for a missing moonstone diamond. It involves a family secret with the diamond being ultimately recovered.
Now why would Chicagoan Susan Hanes travel to London in January 2024 for the anniversary of Wilkie Collins’s birth? Well, she has had a relationship with this certain gentleman for some 60 years and he continues to captivate her. The fact that he would have just turned 200 has not diminished the attraction. She was hooked initially in high school with The Moonstone, and later by The Woman in White : especially its opening line: “This is the story of what a Woman’s patience can endure, and what a Man’s resolution can achieve.”
Susan explains that Wilkie’s fascination for her is “his rapier wit, his idiosyncratic, complex characters and his intuitive pronouncements about humanity and its foibles”. Being a member and past President of Chicago’s Caxton Club, it is that literary organization with its many bibliophile members. Their diverse backgrounds form a community that shares a love of the book, so demonstrating Susan’s wide field of literary interest. However her particular passionate following and undiminished interest in Wilkie Collins, has over the years, led to related travels in the UK and the USA, speaking engagements, articles, and eventually in 2008, a book Wilkie Collins’s American Tour 1873-4, published by Pickering and Chatto in London.
Photo courtesy of Susan Hanes
In 2023 she was asked to contribute a chapter to Wilkie Collins in Context, a collection of essays by international scholars published by Cambridge University Press to celebrate the 200th anniversary of his birth.
Charles Dickens and Wilkie Collins
It is the case that not only were Charles Dickens and Wilkie Collins contemporaries, (Dickens 12 years older,) they were friends, who collaborated in many works. But Dickens had rock-star acclaim – being one of the great forces of 19th century literature with an appeal to the common man, as well as the then Queen, and whose name is known today by the everyman in the street. The correspondence between the two, was prolific and their bond strong. Their writing partnerships, travels and theatrical productions are part of a current exhibition in London at the Charles Dickens Museum, Doughty Street, Holburn.
Not surprisingly, Susan’s travels led her to become friends with Lucinda Hawksley, the great- great-great-granddaughter of Charles Dickens. An author, art historian, public speaker, Co-Presenter of Goldster Conversations Podcast and award-winning travel writer, Lucinda guided Susan through the Dickens House exhibition.
The Exhibition Mutual Friends : The Adventures of Charles Dickens and Wilkie Collins opened to coincide with the 200th anniversary of Wilkie Collins’s birth and is open until April 21 2024.
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Photo courtesy Susan Hanes |
Faith Clark, the great granddaughter of Wilkie Collins, and Patron of the Wilkie Collins Society, lives in Greenwich. And now those descendants of Collins and Dickens have met each other. Pictured below, are Faith and Lucinda Hawksley.
Faith Clark and Lucinda Hawksley
Susan was greeted warmly by her longtime friend Faith Clark in this visit to London in January, 2024.
Susan Hanes and Faith Clark. Photo courtesy Susan Hanes |
Susan sitting at Wilkie Collins’s desk in Faith’s house. Photo courtesy Susan Hanes |
William Wilkie Collins (8 January 1824 – 23 September 1889) English novelist and playwright
Photo courtesy Susan Hanes
Preparing for her trip, Susan packed small wrapped gifts of an engraved shot glass with Wilkie’s image and “Celebrating WILKIE 8 January 2024”. She was to meet Andrew Gasson, and Paul Lewis, those ardent leaders of the Wilkie Collins Society, at the gravesite in Kensal Green. She presented her friends, those fellow Wilkie-ites, the gifts, (having already given one to Wilkie’s great granddaughter Faith Clark.) Dividing a 50ml bottle of Highland Park 18 year old malt whisky, a toast was drunk to their literary hero, who has so enriched their lives.
Notes, Links, further reading
Photo of Jill : Joe Mazza Bravelux inc.
Photos copyright © 2024 Jill Lowe. All rights reserved
Images with Shutterstock license
Goldster Conversations Podcast with Lucinda Hawksley
Paul Lewis, BBC broadcaster and secretary of the Wilkie Collins Society
Andrew Gasson President of the Wilkie Collins Society
Wilkie Collins Society
The Caxton Club
