After Dark

After Dark is a book by Wilkie Collins, first published in 1856. The novel is framed by sections titled Leaves from Leah’s Diary, which introduce William Kerby, a travelling portrait-painter whose livelihood is suddenly threatened when he is warned by his doctor that continued work may cost him his sight. Forced to give up painting temporarily, Kerby and his wife Leah find themselves facing the prospect of poverty and uncertainty. Leah, determined and practical, devises a plan to preserve their income by making use of her husband’s talent for storytelling. Each evening, after dark, Kerby tells one of his carefully crafted tales, and Leah writes them down with the intention of publishing them. These stories form the core of the book, creating a collection of suspenseful narratives linked by the domestic struggle of the framing story. The individual tales explore themes of deception, crime, mistaken identity, moral conflict, and psychological tension. After Dark is one of Wilkie Collins’s earliest published works and offers valuable insight into the development of his later sensation novels. Readers of Victorian fiction, classic mystery, and nineteenth-century short stories will find this collection an engaging example of Collins’s emerging narrative skill and his enduring fascination with suspense and social pressure.