Blind Love

Blind Love was an unfinished novel by Wilkie Collins, which he left behind on his death in 1889. It was completed by historian and novelist Sir Walter Besant. Collins's novel had already begun serialization in The Illustrated London News, even though the author had not yet completed it. (It ran from 6 July to 28 December of that year.) When it was published in book form on 1890, the volume included Besant's preface explaining the circumstances of the collaboration. Collins had started writing the novel in 1887, when newspapers were full of stories about Fenian violence in the wake of the previous year's defeat of the First Irish Home Rule Bill. Collins frequented Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese off London's Fleet Street and borrowed some traits for his male protagonist from John O'Connor Power who was also well known in the convivial tavern.Collins links the Irish Question to the Woman Question. The novel recounts the story of Lord Harry Norland, a member of a squad of political assassins; the book's heroine is Iris Henley, a bold and nonconformist Englishwoman who falls in love with the Irish Norland despite his criminal activities (the "blind love" of the title). The title was originally to have been Lord Harry, the colloquial name for the devil. Blind Love is Wilkie Collin's final novel. Although he did not live to complete the work, he left detailed plans for the last third of this novel which were faithfully executed by his colleague, the popular author Sir Walter Besant. The novel is set during the Irish Land War of the early 1880s and tells the story of Iris Henley, an independent young woman who marries the "wild" Lord Harry Norland, a member of an Irish secret society, and becomes unhappily drawn into a conspiracy plot." The Broadview edition of Blind Love includes a critical introduction and primary source materials that address the novel's focus on movements for Irish independence. Appendices include newspaper acconts of Ireland during the Land War and of the fraud case on which Collins based his story, articles reacting to Collins's sudden death, Punch cartoons depicting the English attitudes toward the Irish, and contemporary reviews. Wilkie Collins's last novel, finished after his death by Walter Besant. Collins planned the whole work and was able to complete the first forty-eight chapters (weekly parts 1-18, to 2 November 1889). Besant finished the remainder from Collins's comprehensive notes, and explained the circumstances in his preface. Blind Love was the third title for the story, originally known as 'Iris' and as late as May 1889 called 'The Lord Harry'. The novel charts the moral decline of the central male character, Lord Harry Norland. His unstable personality veers from fervent idealism, which implicates him in a political murder, to suicidal despair; then to involvement in a sordid insurance fraud, also resulting in murder. He is finally killed by the Fenian terrorists whose cause he had supported. The virtuous Iris is blinded to his faults and insidiously corrupted by her love for him until she discovers the true enormity of his crime. Then 'The blind love fell from her - it was dead at last; but it left her bound to the man by a chain which nothing could break; she was in her right senses; she saw things as they were; but the knowledge came too late.' Iris Henley is at odds with her father because she refuses to marry Hugh Mountjoy, nephew of her Irish godfather. She is in love with the wild Lord Harry Norland, a friend of Hugh's brother, Arthur. Harry has joined the Invincibles, an Irish political secret society, which assassinates Arthur despite Harry's attempted warnings. Harry, saved from betrayal by Iris, vows revenge on his friend's murderer. Iris returns to England, breaking her journey to stay with Mrs Vimpany, wife of an unsuccessful, avaricious doctor. Mrs Vimpany has been secretly paid by Harry to keep a watch on Iris.