Product Description

Armadale tells the devastating story of the independent, murderous, and adulterous Lydia Gwilt. This traditional melodrama also considers the modern theme of the role of women in society.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #494459 in Books
• Published on: 1999-03-04
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 880 pages

About the Author
Catherine Peters is Lecturer in English at Somerville College and author of Thackeray's Universe (1987)

Customer Reviews

Stunning
I stayed up night after night until I had finished this book, and was exhausted physically and emotionally afterwards! After a slow start (only a few pages, go with it), I couldn't get enough of it. It is by far the best book I have ever read. Lydia Gwilt and Mother Oldershaw are glorious examples of cunning and connivance, and I couln't help thinking that Allan Armadale deserved it to some extent, being at times annoyingly naive. I was left at a loss for days after finishing it, and what glorious character names Collins comes up with - where else would you find such a name Ozias Midwinter. If you like a touch of the gothic running through your Victoriana, then this is the book for you.

Villain,heroine, victim...
In some ways this is a traditional Victorian melodrama; rather long, lots of coincidence, lots of varyingly plausible twists and turns. However, looked at from the 21st century, it seems much more subtle than it may have seemed to some readers at the time.

Much of the story is told from the viewpoint of the 'villain', Lydia Gwilt. We know she has 'evil designs' to marry the rich Alan Armadale, a 'good', but rather idiotic young man. Not until some way in do we find out details of her evil past. But pause a moment and think about it. Actually, for most of her past life she was a put-upon victim, villified for doing something mildly bad at 12 years of age at the coertion of her mistress, Alan Armadale's mother (who is viewed as an innocent victim of Lydia), abused by two men...

In addition to the two possible interpretations of her past life, Lydia is an intelligent, witty and very fascinating woman, a masterpiece of characterisation by Wilkie Collins.

In the same way as with Eliot's Adam Bede, I find myself wondering if the author was really clever enough to write a novel that worked according to the mores of his time, but works just as well, if very differently, according to our mores.