Editing Wilkie Collins (section)

==Early life==
[[File:Millais Wilkie Collins.jpg|thumb|upright|Portrait of Collins by [[John Everett Millais]], 1850]]
Collins was born at 11 [[New Cavendish Street]], [[London]], the son of [[William Collins (painter)|William Collins]], a well-known [[Royal Academy|Royal Academician]] landscape painter, and his wife, Harriet Geddes. Named after his father, he soon became known by his middle name, which honoured his godfather, the painter [[David Wilkie (artist)|David Wilkie]]. The family moved to [[Pond Street, Hampstead|Pond Street]], [[Hampstead]], in 1826. In 1828 Collins's brother [[Charles Allston Collins]] was born. Between 1829 and 1830, the Collins family moved twice, first to [[Hampstead Square]] and then to [[Porchester Terrace]], [[Bayswater]].<ref name="Chronology">{{Cite book |title=The Cambridge Companion to Wilkie Collins; Chronology |year=2006 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |isbn=0-521-84038-4 |pages=xiii-xix }}</ref> Wilkie and Charles received their early education from their mother at home. The Collins family were deeply religious, and Collins's mother enforced strict [[church attendance]] on her sons, which Wilkie disliked.{{sfn|Klimaszewski|2011|p=15}}

In 1835, Collins began attending school at the [[Maida Vale]] academy. From 1836 to 1838, he lived with his parents in Italy and France, which made a great impression on him. He learned Italian while in Italy and began learning French, in which he would eventually become fluent.{{sfn |Klimaszewski |2011 |pp=17–18}} From 1838 to 1840, he attended the Reverend Cole's private boarding school in [[Highbury]], where he was bullied. One boy forced Collins to tell him a story every night before allowing him to go to sleep. "It was this brute who first awakened in me, his poor little victim, a power of which but for him I might never have been aware.... When I left school I continued story telling for my own pleasure," Collins later said.<ref name="Cain"/>

In 1840 the family moved to 85 Oxford Terrace, [[Bayswater]]. In late 1840, Collins left school at the age of nearly 17 and was apprenticed as a [[clerk (position)|clerk]] to the firm of tea merchants Antrobus & Co, owned by a friend of Wilkie's father. He disliked clerical work, but worked for the company for more than five years. 

Collins started writing and published his first story, "The Last Stage Coachman", in the ''Illuminated Magazine'' in August 1843.{{sfn |Klimaszewski |2011 |pp=19–21}} In 1844 he travelled to Paris with Charles Ward. That same year he wrote his first novel, ''Iolani, or Tahiti as It Was; a Romance'', which was submitted to [[Chapman and Hall]] but rejected in 1845. The novel remained unpublished during his lifetime.<ref name="Chronology"/> Collins said of it: "My youthful imagination ran riot among the noble savages, in scenes which caused the respectable British publisher to declare that it was impossible to put his name on the title page of such a novel." While Collins was writing this novel, his father first learned that his son would not follow him in becoming a painter.<ref name="Cain">{{Cite book |title=Introduction to The Legacy of Cain |last=Clarke |first=William M. |year=2003 |publisher=Alan Sutton |location=UK |isbn=0-7509-0453-4 |pages=v–x }}</ref>

William Collins had intended his first son to become a clergyman and was disappointed in Wilkie's lack of interest in the profession. At his father's insistence, Collins instead entered [[Lincoln's Inn]] in 1846, to study law; his father wanted him to have a steady income. Collins showed only a slight interest in law and spent most of his time with friends and on working on a second novel, ''Antonina, or the Fall of Rome''.{{sfn|Klimaszewski|2011|p=28}} After his father's death in 1847, Collins produced his first published book, ''Memoirs of the Life of William Collins, Esq., R. A.'', published in 1848. 

The family moved to 38 Blandford Square soon afterwards, where they used their drawing room for amateur theatricals. In 1849, Collins exhibited a painting, ''The Smugglers' Retreat'', at the [[Royal Academy summer exhibition]]. ''Antonina'' was published by [[Richard Bentley (publisher)|Richard Bentley]] in February 1850. Collins went on a walking tour of [[Cornwall]] with artist Henry Brandling in July and August 1850.<ref name="Chronology"/> He managed to complete his legal studies and was called to the bar in 1851. Though he never formally practised, he used his legal knowledge in many of his novels.<ref name="Cain"/>