A ROGUE'S LIFEWilkie Collins's short novel was originally published in Household Words during 1856. It was republished in book form in 1879 after an invitation from George Bentley 'to take a place in his new series of pretty volumes in red.' Collins made minor changes to the text and noted in some 'Introductory Words' that it was written 'at a very happy time in my past life...at Paris, when I had Charles Dickens for a near neighbour and a daily companion.' He also revealed that he had intended, but never written, a further series of the Rogue's adventures in Australia. The theme of picture forgery, and the character of Frank Softly, were probably inspired by Memoirs of a Picture, written by Collins's grandfather, William Collins Senior. The Scotch marriage of Frank and Alicia anticipates Collins's later attack on marriage laws in Man and Wife (1870).PLOT SUMMARYFrank Softly is a poor young gentleman whose snobbish father sends him to boarding school to make useful connections, but without success. He tries a variety of professions to earn his living but by the time he is twenty-five has failed at medicine, caricaturing, portrait painting, forging Old Masters and administering a scientific institution.Frank then falls in love with Dr Dulcifer's daughter, Alicia, but discovers that her father is a counterfeit coin maker. Our likeable hero is unwillingly recruited into forging to compromise him as a felon. At this point the doctor considers him unsuitable as a son-in-law and sends Alicia away to Wales. The counterfeiters are betrayed to the Bow Street Runners but Frank escapes, finds Alicia and elopes with her to Scotland. Immediately after their wedding, Frank is arrested, tried and transported to Australia. As a model prisoner he becomes servant to his own wife who has travelled to the New World in the person of a widow. By the time Frank is officially released, their speculations have proved so successful that he is a rich man and a rogue no longer...William Wilkie Collins (8 January 1824 - 23 September 1889) was an English novelist, playwright, and short story writer, best known for The Woman in White (1859), No Name (1862), Armadale (1866) and The Moonstone (1868). The last has been called the first modern English detective novel. Born to the family of painter William Collins in London, he grew up in Italy and France, learning French and Italian. He began work as a clerk for a tea merchant. After his first novel, Antonina, appeared in 1850, he met Charles Dickens, who became a close friend and mentor. Some of Collins's works appeared first in Dickens's journals All the Year Round and Household Words and they collaborated on drama and fiction. Collins published his best known works in the 1860s, achieving financial stability and an international following. However, he began suffering from gout. Taking opium for the pain developed into an addiction. In the 1870s and 1880s the quality of his writing declined along with his health. Collins was critical of the institution of marriage: he split his time between Caroline Graves, except for a two-year separation, and his common-law wife Martha Rudd, with whom he had three children.