Collins enjoyed ten years of success after publishing The Woman in White in 1859. His next novel, No Name combined social commentary – the absurdity of the law as applied to children of unmarried parents (see Illegitimacy in fiction) – with a densely plotted revenge thriller. Armadale, the first and only one of Collins's major novels of the 1860s to be serialised in a magazine other than All the Year Round, provoked strong criticism. Reviewers found its villainess Lydia Gwilt to be doubtful, and were further provoked by Collins's typically confrontational preface. The novel was simultaneously a financial coup for its author and a comparative commercial failure: the sum paid by Cornhill for the serialisation rights was exceptional, eclipsing by a substantial margin the prices paid for the vast majority of similar novels, yet the novel failed to recoup its publisher's investment.
Collins enjoyed ten years of success after publishing The Woman in White in 1859. His next novel, No Name combined social commentary – the absurdity of the law as applied to children of unmarried parents (see Illegitimacy in fiction) – with a densely plotted revenge thriller. Armadale, the first and only one of Collins's major novels of the 1860s to be serialised in a magazine other than All the Year Round, provoked strong criticism. Reviewers found its villainess Lydia Gwilt to be doubtful, and were further provoked by Collins's typically confrontational preface. The novel was simultaneously a financial coup for its author and a comparative commercial failure: the sum paid by Cornhill for the serialisation rights was exceptional eclipsing by a substantial margin the prices paid for the vast majority of similar novels, yet the novel failed to recoup its publisher's investment.