The black robe

The Black Robe is an 1881 epistolary novel by famed English writer, Wilkie Collins. The book relates the misadventures of Lewis Romayne, and is also noted for a perceived anti-Catholic bias. As the story begins, Romayne and his friend, Major Hynd, are in Boulogne to visit Romayne’s aunt, who is dying. While there, Romayne attends a card game, where he has an argument with a corrupt card sharp, the General, who challenges him to a duel. However, the general doesn’t turn up himself but nominates his son, an accurate shot, who should win the duel. Romayne absolutely does not want to fight but is goaded into doing so. Against the odds, he accidentally kills his opponent, and the screams of the man’s brother after the death come to haunt Romayne for the rest of his life.

William Wilkie Collins (8 January 1824 – 23 September 1889) was an English novelist, playwright, and short story writer.  Born into the family of painter William Collins in London, he lived with his family in Italy and France as a child and learned French and Italian. He worked as a clerk for a tea merchant. After his first novel, Antonina, was published in 1850, he met Charles Dickens, who became a close friend, mentor and collaborator. Some of Collins’s works were first published in Dickens’ journals All the Year Round and Household Words and the two collaborated on drama and fiction.