In the following essay, Milbank surveys Collins's sensation fiction, focusing particularly on his unconventional heroines and their ultimate subjugation to authorial and patriarchal authority.

In the following essay, Heller examines the nineteenth-century division of sensation novels into "serious" or "popular" and "male" or "female." Heller focuses on Wilkie Collins's collection of short stories published in 1856, After Dark, to explore the way in which the presence of these divisions affected Collins's work.

In the following essay, Gruner evaluates The Moonstone's “scathing commentary” on the secrets and hidden sins of the Victorian family.

In the following essay, Balée sees The Woman in White as a “subversion of Victorian sexual stereotypes.”

In the following essay, Duncan explores Collins's representation of romantic imperialist discourse in The Moonstone.

In the following excerpt, Thoms studies the thematic “quest for independence and identity” in Basil, viewing this early novel's foreshadowing of the principal issues in Collins's later fiction.

In the following essay, Morris discusses women criminals in the novels of Wilkie Collins, and asserts that Collins portrays criminal behavior among women as a revolt against domestic violence, and by presenting the women characters as intelligent, normal, and rational, rather than simple-minded, deviant, or depraved, Collins undermined traditional Victorian gender roles as well as the established, acceptable motives for murder in Victorian fiction.

In the following essay, Williams analyzes The Woman in White in the context of Victorian gender ideology.

In the following essay, Bernstein considers the gothic setting of The Woman in White and its relation to the novel's “historical narratives of class, gender, and genre.”

In the following essay, Rance investigates Collins's sensation novels in relation to the historical mood of 1860s England.

In the following essay, Allen offers an assessment of Collins's works as modern and enduring, rather than merely melodramatic and sensationalistic.

In the following essay, Perkins and Donaghy examine the subtle critique of Victorian gender conventions in The Woman in White.

In the following essay, David argues that No Name's questioning of Victorian gender politics disrupts its conventional narrative discourse.

In the following essay, Frick discusses Collins's ambivalent treatment of fallen women in his novels.