"The Two Destinies" is a singular by Wilkie Collins. This exciting work weaves a story of thriller, romance, and the supernatural. The story revolves round significant characters, the blind musician, and composer, Maurice Linzey, and the stunning and enigmatic young woman, Jessie Yelverton. Maurice, who has the unique capability to understand a person's real character through his heightened senses, encounters Jessie, a girl haunted through a mysterious past. As their lives end up entwined, the narrative unfolds with factors of suspense and the mystical. The novel takes unexpected turns as it delves into subject matters of destiny, love, and the outcomes of one's moves. Collins skillfully combines factors of the Gothic and the supernatural with an eager know-how of human psychology. The plot navigates thru secrets and techniques, deceptions, and the complexities of relationships. "The Two Destinies" stands proud in Collins's body of work for its exploration of the supernatural, which adds an additional layer of intrigue to the narrative. As the character’s grapple with their destinies, the radical keeps readers on the edge of their seats, combining factors of Victorian sensation fiction with Collins's signature storytelling.
William Wilkie Collins was an English novelist and playwright best known for The Woman in White (1859), a mystery and early sensation novel, and The Moonstone (1868), which established many of the ground rules of the modern detective novel and may be the first clear example of the police procedural genre. Born to London painter William Collins and his wife, Harriet Geddes, he moved to Italy with them when he was twelve years old, spending two years there and in France learning both Italian and French. Collins was born at 11 New Cavendish Street in London, the son of William Collins, a well-known Royal Academician landscape painter, and his wife, Harriet Geddes. Named after his father, he quickly became recognized by his second name, which honors his godfather, painter David Wilkie. The family relocated to Pond Street, Hampstead, around 1826. In 1828, Collins' brother Charles Allston Collins was born. Between 1829 and 1830, the Collins family relocated twice: first to Hampstead Square and subsequently to Porchester Terrace in Bayswater. Wilkie and Charles received an early education from their mother at home. The Collins family was very religious, and Collins' mother insisted on strict church attendance for her boys, which Wilkie detested.
