Armadale

Haunted by a deathbed confession and a dream-prophecy, the handsome, doomed Allan Armadale and the beautiful, scheming Lydia Gwilt are drawn into a labyrinth of concealed identity, inherited guilt, and murder. Collins constructs one of his most elaborate and daring sensation novels around a magnificent villainess whose diary lays bare a criminal mind. Full of suspense, coincidence, and psychological intrigue, Armadale unfolds a complex plot of fate and free will. Bold and gripping, it pushed the boundaries of Victorian fiction with its morally ambiguous heroine and its dark meditation on whether we can escape the sins of the past. A thrilling masterwork of the sensation genre.