Wilkie Collins Flashcards
Arrival in Whitby
1861 With lover Caroline Graves to write his novel Armadale, a story of love, murder and revenge. He had heard of Whitby from his fellow author and friend Charle Dickens, particularly in a letter that year in which Dickens mentioned the White Horse and Griffen Inn to him and which Dickens frequented and dined in when in Whitby.
Caroline Graves
She was his inspiration for the tortured and asylum bound Anne Catherick in his famous novel ‘The Woman in White’
He stays at…
At the Royal Hotel, created by George Hudson the Railway King in 1848
He Considers Whitby to be…
‘…one of the most magnificent places in England.’
But…
Is soon put off with the number of children playing outside and the incessant sound of the brass band outside that severely puts him off his writing, and attention he wishes to give to Ms Graves, a block on both counts?
A possible ghostly connection however to…
The White Wraith story seen on the cliffs directly below in 1905 by Boy Scouts, early 1980’s by a woman, her husband and doggies and almost by me in the late 1980’s when I was in the panto.
According to The Guardian Newspaper of 30/10/09
Collins..stayed at the Royal Hotel in 1861 and the following year published his follow-up to his ghost story The Woman In White, No Name (1862), which includes scenes set locally.
the Woman in White predates his stay in Whitby (1859)
But he may have heard of the White Wraith spectre before his publishing The Woman in White in 1859-60, possibly during a conversation or letter with Dickens who had been to Whitby previously in 1844?
Dates
Arrived 1861
Royal Hotel 1848
Woman in White Published 1859
No Name 1862, follow up to Woman in White
Armadale published 1866
