Basil

Wilkie Collins' novel 'Basil' is regarded as the inspiration for the later 'sensation novel' and ultimately today's 'detective genre'. The book produced a furore when first published in 1852, Shocked by this frank tale of secret marriage, betrayal, madness and mortality, the critics and self-appointed upholders of Victorian values tore into the work, describing the book as 'a tale of criminality, almost revolting from its domestic horrors. The vicious atmosphere ... weighs on us like a nightmare'. Seen from today's perspective 'Basil' is a perceptive exploration of nineteenth-century sexuality and social class. It is also a gripping psychological thriller which, as the eponymous hero tells us, "... is the story of an error, innocent in its beginning, guilty in its progress, and fatal in its results".