No Name

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2 Reviews

• Wilkie Collins - No Name

  One sentence summary:- A rollicking good yarn with a moral and some really believable characters.

  Describe the plot without giving anything away:- The Vanstone family is a happy one – Mr Vanstone is a gentle and genial sort and his wife equally loving to their two daughters – the traditional and ... (continue)

  One sentence summary:- A rollicking good yarn with a moral and some really believable characters.

  Describe the plot without giving anything away:- The Vanstone family is a happy one – Mr Vanstone is a gentle and genial sort and his wife equally loving to their two daughters – the traditional and sensible Norah and her younger sister, the head-strong Magdalene. When their parents die tragedy hits in more ways than one – the girls find out their parents were not married and consequently they are not entitled to any inheritance and are turned out of their home. As bad as that is the fact that they are not entitled to use the name Vanstone. They are illegitimate, have no name. While Norah settles for the prospect of being a governess, Magdalene decides to tackle her wicked uncle and his son head on…

  General comments:- This novel, about the stigma of illegitimacy, was initially rejected as immoral by the critics of its day, but is now seen as a work of social insight, showing Collins at the height of his powers.

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  Scriptor Senex said on Jan 27, 2012 | Add your feedback

• 

  I was really hoping to like this more. I did really enjoy the woman in white but I found this quite disappointing. I was excited about the idea of a morally ambiguous heroine and a witty novel, hoping for another Becky Sharpe, but alas it was not meant to be. The main character was at first at spoil ... (continue)

  I was really hoping to like this more. I did really enjoy the woman in white but I found this quite disappointing. I was excited about the idea of a morally ambiguous heroine and a witty novel, hoping for another Becky Sharpe, but alas it was not meant to be. The main character was at first at spoilt girl then she decided on “a plan” but her plan was failed immediately and all the scheming came from Mr. Wragge who was rather awful. I felt like him and his wife were straight out of a Dickens novel, with their cartoonish behaviour. His wife’s “condition” just wasn’t written very well. Wragge was just far too clever, conniving, annoying and just generally unpleasant to read. The one interesting and clever woman was the villain. The plot was rather obvious how it was going to play out, so there was just no tension in the different "scenes" very little changed, and even if all the schemeing did eventually get the girls their fortune back, it was mostly through marriage and not through their own ingenuity that they got their rewards. The lesson seemed to be all women try to do to help themselves will fail, they are only rewarded for being beautiful and keeping to their proper place in society. Which needless to say I did not much care for!

  I felt the writing style was rather bland. Nowhere was the nice first person prose of the woman in white. While it was supposed to be humorous (I think) I just wasn’t finding it so. Half way through I found myself loosing interest and decided to try and finish it as quickly as possible.

  I must say after reading this I much less interested in reading any more Wilkie Collins.

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  Robot-mel said on Oct 10, 2010 about the Paperback edition | Add your feedback

Book Details

• Rating:
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• English Books
• eBook 656 Pages
• ISBN-10: 0141905204
• ISBN-13: 9780141905204
• Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd
• Pub date: Sep 30, 2004
• Also available as: Paperback, Library Binding and Others
• In other languages: other languages Libros en Español, Libri Italiani

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