WILLIAM WILKIE COLLINS

From a Photograph by HERBERT WATKINS

1857 age 33
This engraving accompanied a critical biography of Wilkie by Edmund Yates in his short-lived periodical The Train (June 1857 III p353).

Wilkie was so appalled by the likeness he wrote to the photographer Herbert Watkins to say

'While I am writing of my likenesses, I must offer you my sincere condolences on the incredibly bad copy made by the engraver of “The Train” from your fine original...I was obviously amazed when I first saw the astounding caricature in the magazine which assumed to represent what you had done from me. But I may add with perfect sincerity that I was really distressed on your account when I remembered the pains you had taken to produce an excellent likeness, and when I saw the result that appeared in the “Train”.' (To Watkins 14 July 1857 see www.charlesdickensonline.com/Gallery/g257.htm)

No copy of the original photograph has been identified. But a profile in the same costume was taken at the same time.


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