However, it is an odd piece for Collins to choose. He was devoutly against organised religion and nowhere else did he write in any way sympathetically about the Catholic church. His short story 'The Yellow Mask' (Household Words 7-28 July 1855 republished in After Dark 1856), and his novel The Black Robe (1881) were both seen as fiercely anti-catholic. And as early as Rambles Beyond Railways (1851)he wrote in a hostile fashion about an abbey of nuns (chapter XIV 'The Nuns of Mawgan'). This chapter remained in the 1861 2d edition though two others were omitted.
'The Midnight Mass' was one of nine (arguably ten) pieces which Wilkie Collins wrote for Bentley's Miscellany which were published between March 1851 and August 1852. Richard Bentley had already published Collins's first novel Antonina in 1850 and went on to publish his four subsequent books (Bentley also published four more in the 1870s). Apart from 'The Last Stage Coachman' published in 1843, Collins's work in Bentley's Miscellany is his earliest known periodical material. His contributions were a mixture of stories and non-fiction pieces. Two months after 'The Midnight Mass' a second story set in the French revolution was published in the periodical. It was 'Nine O'Clock' and this time it was Collins's own; in many ways the two are a pair. He later wrote a third and longer story set in the French Revolution, 'Sister Rose'. Published in Household Words in April 1855 it was one of the inspirations for Dickens's A Tale of Two Cities.
Wilkie was paid £5-5s-0d for the 10 pages of 'The Midnight Mass'. This rate of half a guinea a page, was less than the rate of five eighths of a guinea which he was paid for his other eight pieces in Bentley's Miscellany. That may have reflected the fact that this was a translation or that he was allegedly collecting the money on behalf of someone else. Each full page contains around 600 words and the total count for this piece is 5750 so he was paid about 18s-3d (91p) for each 1000 words. At the time, a labourer could expect to earn around 10s-6d per week. (Click here for a short introduction to Victorian currency)
Altogether his nine pieces brought him £66-19s-0d. The receipts for all of them are extant in the British Library and seem to have been written at one later date by a clerk and initialled 'W.W.C.' by Collins. Headed 'W Wilkie Collins Esq in account with R Bentley for copyright in "Bentley's Miscellany"' they record each piece, and the amount and date paid. Usually he was paid in cash about two weeks after the publication date which was the first of each month. The payment for 'The Midnight Mass' is recorded 'By cash June 8/52'. In June 1852 Wilkie was finishing the manuscript for the first of his novels set in contemporary times, Basil, published by Bentley later that year.
'The Midnight Mass' was also published in August 1852 in the USA in Harper's New Monthly Magazine (vol. V, no.27 pp340-345) without attribution to Collins, Balzac, or Bentley's Miscellany. Apart from that it has never been republished and is seldom mentioned in biographies or bibliographies of Wilkie Collins.
One obvious printing error has been left - sarcely [scarcely], p.629, line 5. And the signatures (letters which indicate the printed sheet) have been reproduced as they were at the foot of pp.629 and 630.
version 1.05
2 February 1997