“If you value your peace of mind, and the happiness of your life to come, abstain from attempting to know more than you know now.” (p. 43)
In my world, I like to assume that everyone has already read The Moonstone and The Woman in White. After that, there are so many excellent but little-known suspense novels by Wilkie Collins that having to choose just one was almost paralyzing. I picked The Law and the Lady, originally published in 1875, over some stiff competition, so think of it as the tip of an iceberg that you have your whole life to explore (as his Collected Works run 30 volumes).
A major selling point is this novel's headstrong heroine, who learns that the truth – and the deductive satisfaction of solving a self-determined quest for knowledge – is its own reward. When the newlywed Valeria discovers that her husband has been keeping secrets from her -- to the point of having married her under an assumed name -- she determines to learn the truth. “I must face the consequences of making the discovery, whatever they may be,” (p. 72) she says early on, and she sticks to her conviction. When she discovers that her husband was formerly accused of a terrible crime, she works relentlessly to prove his innocence, even when doing so threatens her marriage. "With everything that a woman could want to make her happy, I was ready to put that happiness in peril, rather than remain ignorant." (p. 347) Whether the man she loves is worth the lengths she goes for him is a highly debatable point, but when she says that "I have tried, tried hard, to be a teachable, reasonable woman. But there is something in me that won't be taught," (p. 267) it's hard for a modern woman not to cheer.
The novel's other undeniable attraction is the bizarre character of the wheelchair-bound Miserrimus Dexter, with his “insatiable relish for horrors.” (p. 230) Today, Dexter would be reading true crime novels, collecting the clown paintings of John Wayne Gacy and other "murderabilia," and maybe setting up a roadside attraction like the one in House of 1000 Corpses. In the 19th century, he collects human skeletons and the death masks of famous murderers, and himself paints scenes of death and torture, with a "diseased and riotous delight ...in representing Horrors." (p. 213)
Nothing new under the sun indeed! Like many of Collins' novels, this one contains that quintessential combination of elements: insight into the sometimes alien mores of his era, and timeless psychological perceptions which are still apt today. Sometimes the two dovetail, as when a plot point about women using arsenic as a cosmetic struck me as bizarre, and even primitive, until I realized that it was just the Botox of the 19th century.
Fortunately, this book is readily available in the Penguin Classics series. And I'm sure you'll be happy that when David Skilton adds a fine context-setting introduction and worthwhile footnotes, "the moral right of the editor has been asserted," according to the copyright page.
Collins, Wilkie. The Law and the Lady. London: Penguin, 1998.