I'm rereading the works of Wilkie Collins chronologically. I first read them in my twenties, when I didn't understand capitalism and slavery at all, having been lied to by teachers for my entire life to that point. I loved the books unproblematically then, but now the political dimension oppresses my attention.

These people all have servants because they enclosed the commons and made it illegal not to have a job. Their income comes ultimately from slave labor in the colonies. Their ubiquitous sugar, rice, indigo, is made from destroyed African lives. Their gracious lives float on an ocean of blood.

As does mine in the present along with everyone else here in the imperial core. I tell myself that it's better hidden now, so easier to live with, but I bet it felt as hidden to the average middle or upper class citizen of Victorian England.

For all that, though, goddamit The Woman In White is a freaking great novel!

#Slavery #Abolition #Capitalism #WilkieCollins #VictorianLiterature #VictorianEngland #TheWomanInWhite

#WilkieCollins #DetectiveFiction #VictorianLiterature #Mysteries #GhostStories #Novelist #Novels #VictorianWriters #TheWomanInWhite #TheMoonstone

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2024/jan/08/where-to-start-with-wilkie-collins