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Armadale, (the first and only of Collins' major novels of the 1860s to be serialised in a magazine other than Dickens' "All The Year Round") provoked strong criticism, generally centred around its transgressive villainess Lydia Gwilt; and provoked in part by Collins' typically confrontational prefaratory material. The novel was simultaneously a financial coup for its author and a comparative commercial failure: the sum paid by the Cornhill magazine for the serialisation rights was exceptional, eclipsing the prices paid for the vast majority of similar novels by a substantial margin, yet the novel itself failed to recoup its publishers' investment. The Moonstone, published in 1868, and the last novel of what is generally regarded as the most successful decade of its authors' career was, despite a somewhat cool reception from both Dickens and the critics, a significant return to form and reestablished the market value of an author whose success in the competitive Victorian literary marketplace had been gradually waning in the wake of his first "masterpiece." Viewed by many to represent the advent of the Detective Story within the tradition of the English Novel, it remains one of Collins' most critically acclaimed productions.

However, various factors (most often cited are the loss of Dickens' literary mentoring after that author's death in 1870; Collins' increased dependence upon laudanum; and a somewhat ill-advised penchant for utilising his fiction to rail against social injustices) appear to have led to a decline in the two decades following the success of his sensation novels of the 1860s and prior to his death in 1889; and Collins' novels and novellas of the '70s and '80s, whilst by no means entirely devoid of merit or literary interest, are generally regarded as inferior to his previous productions and receive comparatively little critical attention today.

The Woman in White and The Moonstone share an unusual narrative structure, somewhat resembling an epistolary novel, in which different portions of the book have different narrators, each with a distinctive narrative voice (Armadale has this to a lesser extent through the correspondence between some characters). The Moonstone, being the most popular of Collin's novels, is known as a precursor for detective fiction such as Sherlock Holmes.

After The Moonstone, Collins's novels contained fewer thriller elements and more social commentary. The subject matter continued to be "sensational", but his popularity declined. Swinburne commented: "What brought good Wilkie's genius nigh perdition? Some demon whispered - 'Wilkie! have a mission.'"

Bibliography

Memoirs of the Life of William Collins, Esq., R.A. (1848)

Antonina (1850)

Rambles Beyond Railways (1851)

Basil (1852)

Mr Wray's Cash Box (1852)

Hide and Seek (1854)

The Ostler (1855)

After the Dark (1856)

The Dead Secret (1857)

The Frozen Deep (1857), a play co-written with Charles Dickens

A House to Let (1858), a short story co-written with Charles Dickens, Elizabeth Gaskell and Adelaide Anne Procter

The Queen of Hearts (1859)

The Woman in White (1860)

No Name (1862)

My Miscellanies (1863)

Armadale (1866)

No Thoroughfare (1867), a story and play co-written with Charles Dickens

The Moonstone (1868)

Man and Fish (1870)

Poor Miss Finch (1872)

Miss or Mrs? (1873)

The New Magdalen (1873)

The Frozen Deep and Other Stories (1874) The Frozen Deep

Dream Woman

John Jago's Ghost; or The Dead Alive

The Law and the Lady (1875)

The Two Destinies (1876)

The Haunted Hotel (1878)

The Fallen Leaves (1879)

A Rogue's Life (1879)

My Lady's Money (1879)

Jezebel's Daughter (1880)

The Black Robe (1881)

Heart and Science (1883)

I Say No (1884)

The Ghost's Touch and Other Stories (1885)

The Evil Genius (1886)

The Guilty River (1886)

Little Novels (1887)

The Legacy of Cain (1889)

Blind Love (1889 - unfinished. Completed by Walter Besant)

Iolani, or Tahiti as it was. A Romance (1999)

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Biography of Charles Dickens

Life | Literary