Rudolf Lehmann, (William) Wilkie Collins, 1880; National Portrait Gallery, London

There is nothing like a good read. And Wilkie Collins was the master of the Victorian page-turner, the long, heavily plotted “sensation novel” that revealed the secrets lurking beneath the surface of seemingly placid households, each chapter irresistibly leading to the next. In the words of a contemporary critic, “Nobody leaves one of his tales unfinished.” Collins was the ultimate craftsman of the controlled ratcheting of suspense and surprise. Who can ever forget the build-up to Walter Hartwright’s first breakfast room meeting with Marian Halcombe in The Woman in White: “The easy elegance of every movement of her limbs and body as soon as she began to advance from the far end of the room, set me in a flutter of expectation to see her face clearly. She left the window—and I said to myself, The lady is dark. She moved forward a few steps—and I said to myself, The lady is young. She approached nearer—and I said to myself (with a sense of surprise which words fail me to express), The lady is ugly!”