Synopsis "No Name "

The story is told in eight major parts, called Scenes.Scene One begins in 1846, at Combe-Raven in West Somerset, the country residence of the wealthy Vanstone family: Andrew Vanstone, his wife, and their two daughters. Norah, age 26, is happy and quiet; Magdalen, 18, is beautiful but volatile and willful. They live in peace and contentment, looked after by their governess, Miss Garth.Through amateur theatricals, Magdalen discovers she is a talented actress and falls in love with Frank Clare, the idle but handsome son of a neighbour, who is also in the play. They want to be married, and their fathers agree. Although Frank fails at every career he reluctantly tries, and his father is not wealthy, Magdalen's fortune will easily support the young couple.But before they marry, Mr. Vanstone is killed in a train crash and Mrs. Vanstone dies in childbirth. The girls discover from the lawyer, Mr. Pendril, that their parents have only been married for a few months, and their wedding invalidated the will which left everything to the daughters.Since the daughters are illegitimate, they have no name, no rights, and no property. Combe-Raven and the entire family fortune are inherited by Andrew's older brother, Michael Vanstone, who has been bitterly estranged from the family for many years. He refuses to provide any support for the orphaned young women. With the help only of their governess Miss Garth, they set out to make their own way in the world.

Wilkie Collins

(Author)

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(London 1824-1889) Playwright, novelist, and prolific short story writer. At 17, he started working at a tea trading company while writing Ioláni, or Tahiti as it was (Gothic no. 32), a work that was not published until over a century after his death. He studied Law and, although he never practiced, he did use his legal knowledge in many of his works, and critics consider him one of the fathers of the detective genre. In 1851, he met Charles Dickens, with whom he formed a deep friendship and published his main works in his weekly All the Year Around. After Dickens' death in 1870, his popularity waned. He suffered from rheumatic gout which eventually led to an opium addiction. His tombstone epitaph highlights him as the author of the novel The Woman in White.

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