Preface to La Femme en Blanc

The French preface is dated June 1861 and was written at Wilkie's address at Harley Street, where he had moved eighteen months earlier and where he finished writing the monthly parts of The Woman in White (3) in the first half of 1860. The book - and presumably the preface - was translated into French by Wilkie's friend Émile Forgues. He had written about Wilkie's talent in a long piece in Revue des deux Mondes (4) in November 1855. It contains long extracts from Basil (5) and Hide and Seek (6) translated into French by Forgues. He then translated the first French edition of one of Wilkie's books Le Secret (7) (The Dead Secret (8)) under the pseudonym Old Nick which was published by Hachette in 1856. Collins was so pleased with this translation that he dedicated his next book The Queen of Hearts to Forgues. In that dedication he wrote

"I was by no means surprised to find my fortunate work of fiction -- not translated, in the mechanical sense of the word -- but transformed from a novel that I had written in my language, to a novel that you might have written in yours." (9)

Although the preface itself seems to have remained un-noted by scholars, parts of it were used - some in quotes, some not - by Louis Dépret in a chapter on Wilkie Collins in his Chez les Anglais (10)published in 1879. The information in that chapter was referred to by both Nuel Pharr Davis (11) and Catherine Peters (12) in their biographies of Wilkie Collins.

La Femme en Blanc was first published late in 1861. Writing from Harley Street to his mother on 12 December 1861 Wilkie says

"The French translation of The Woman in White is published in two handsomely printed Volumes - and the French critics are very civil - so are letters from French readers. You like a title, don't you? What do [you] think of a French Duke, writing to me in raptures? Ha! ha! ha! "