Wilkie Collins is best known for The Moonstone and The Woman in White, but I highly recommend this enjoyable social issues novel. The action keeps moving and the morals come quick and fast. Collins knew how to write a fully realized character and how to keep the reader’s attention continuously engaged.
Man and Wife involves a tangle of relationships and social questions of the day. The main issue Collins is dealing with here is unfair marriage laws and the horrible situations women would be left in due to their lack of rights in a marriage. The unexpected second issue he goes on at length about is the dangers of sports and how it ruins your health to train too much. I was not expecting a bunch of speeches about how running four miles will basically kill you and how the British people are obsessed with sports and it’s ruining the minds of a generation, but I fully enjoyed every moment of it. I think he had a good point about lack of mental training and schooling leading to growing coarseness and lack of manners, but knowing now what people are capable of in terms of running 100 plus miles, the huge concern he had that your health would completely collapse from running four miles was pretty funny.
But the main draw here is the plot and all the wonderful characters. It’s really a great book and an excellent diversion on a long commute. Lots of high drama and I learned a lot about marriage laws of the period through doing my own research, so it was also educational. The only downside I had was that the Oxford World’s Classics edition had awful notes and I disagreed with the introduction, so maybe another edition would be a good idea!
