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Blurb:
Magdalen and Norah Vanstone experience what it means to lose their respectability when they become destitute in Victorian England. They discover that their loving parents were not married at the time of their birth and after losing their idyllic country estate - Combe Raven - Norah takes the long and arduous journey of becoming a governess. Magdalen, however, choses a different path.
She becomes entwined in a deep plot to regain her rightful property with the help of the audacious swindler, Captain Wragge. After pages and pages of turmoil, the book comes to a head when Magdalen has to make decisions that will change her life forever.
Characters of the Book:
Magdalen Vanstone: The heroine. A headstrong young woman, determined to regain her fortune and only eighteen at the beginning of the book.
Norah Vanstone: Magdalen's calm, older sister.
Captain Horacio Wragge: A self proclaimed swindler who claims to be the Vanstone sisters' uncle on their mother's side.
Noel Vanstone: Magdalen and Norah's cousin on their father's side who holds the Vanstone fortune.
Mrs Lecount: Noel Vanstone's domineering housekeeper and Magdalen's nemesis.
My Experience of the Book:
Before I read No Name by Wilkie Collins I had already read four other books by Wilkie Collins, so I was expecting an in-depth and nerve-racking plot which is common in all of his books. Also, I had been forewarned by my mother, who had already read it, that it was fantastic. Well, even with all this in the back of my mind, I was not prepared for No Name...
When I first started to read the book I thought Magdalen was a spoilt young girl who did not know her own mind and Norah was the calm, sensible older sister. But after the catastrophe of them losing their parents and fortune Magdalen undergoes a sudden change. She becomes a determined, independent, headstrong woman - even at the age of eighteen. My feelings certainly underwent a change at this point of the book and I started to love Magdalen and think her the rightful heroine.
Moving along the story a bit, you meet my favourite character - Captain Wragge. In all the previous Wilkie Collins books that I have read there has always been an amusing character to slightly lighten the heaviness of the book; in The Moonstone there is Betteridge or Miss Clack, in the Woman in White there is Pesca and in Armadale... well, Armadale is a different matter and deserves a review all of its own! And in No Name there is Captain Wragge. Even though he is a cheat and swindler I still loved him, you can kind of see how Mrs Wragge - his simple yet long suffering wife - was induced to marry him. Also, the help he gives to Magdalen, regardless of the ethics of their plans, is very touching and he is a definite relief to the drama in the rest of the book.
Next we come to the dramatic part of the story: Noel Vanstone! At this point I discovered that Wilkie forgot to write about any decent men! I mean, Francis Clare (Magdalen's suitor) and Noel Vanstone are the biggest wimps ever to be written about. How Magdalen and Wragge put up with Noel throughout that time I will never know, but I take my hat off to them. Mrs Lecount is another tough customer, it is brilliantly written so that (if you have read the book you will understand) you hate her even though, when it comes down to it, she is only trying to protect her master.
Spoiler Alert - if you haven't already read the book and you do not want to find out a key factor to the story, skip this paragraph!
The key factor is Captain Kirke. With most authors you know there is always going to be a happy ending unless it is stated that it is a tragedy, but with Wilkie Collins you can never be too sure. So when Kirke made his first appearance in Aldborough, where Magdalen and Wragge are attempting to lure Noel into marriage with Magdalen, I was hoping at the bottom of my heart that he would come back and fix everything. But blow me, he goes away for a whole year and Magdalen marries Noel Vanstone! I was completely mortified... until happily for everyone else, excluding Mrs Lecount, Noel dies. That set Magdalen free and my hopes rose, they were rewarded with the last scene when Magdalen and Kirke are reunited again!
The spoiler paragraph is over and readers who have not read No Name yet can resume their seats!
All there is to say now is that this is the perfect book to read if you want to a plot that will pull you in straight away and be taken into a Collins whirlpool of adventure, romance and a lot of tension.
About the Author:
William Wilkie Collins (better known as Wilkie) was born on the 8th of January 1824 in London and is known to be one of England's best mystery writers. After developing a talent for writing as a schoolboy, Wilkie's first ever published work was a memoir of his father who died in1847 and after that, fiction followed. His first work of fiction was Antonina which brought him instant fame and lead him to write many more novels, his most famous include: Armadale, No Name, the Moonstone (thought to be the first detective novel) and the Woman in White which was written for Charles Dickens' (with whom Collins had become great friends) magazine: All the Year Round.
It must be noted that Wilkie himself had children out of wedlock. It is, in my opinion, the mark of a great writer when they address subjects that are difficult or even, as in his case, shine a light on their own personal flaws or messy lives.
After a long life of writing and success, Wilkie Collins died on the 23rd of September 1889, in London, aged 65.
"Mr Vanstone's children are Nobody's Children."
"I am a Rogue... there are many varieties of Rogue; let me tell you my variety. I am a Swindler."
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