Wilkie Collins wrote novels of love and marriage which rigorously challenge the privileged status of marital love in both Victorian culture and modern fiction, even as he resolves sensational plots driven by deception, disguise, doubling, secrecy and criminal manipulation into the familiar conclusion of loving wedded bliss. Marriage is both a formal and a thematic concern in a Collins text: his novels explore the grey areas created by shifting social and legal expectations about love, property and the domestic sphere. His interventions range widely. Man and Wife (1870) and The Black Robe (1881) investigate whether a marriage took place legally, for example, and The Woman in White (1860) and Armadale (1866) whether it took place at all. The novel Basil (1852) includes an unconsummated marriage and an adultery plot; The Two Destinies (1876) a bigamy plot; Miss or Mrs? (1873) a clandestine marriage; and The Evil Genius (1886) adultery and divorce. The novel No Name (1862) alone features a bigamous love-match legitimised too late for the financial security of the offspring, an abortive engagement, two rather tepid marriages, and the blockbuster plot, a marriage contracted for the sole purpose of revenge.

As the example of No Name might suggest, the domestic ideal is far from the forefront in a Wilkie Collins text. His novels situate violence and intrigue at the heart of domestic life, even as they probe the legal boundaries of the marriage contract in the period that witnessed the Divorce and Matrimonial Causes Act (1857), the Married Women's Property Bill (1856) and the 1868 Royal Commission attempt to regularise English, Irish and Scottish marriage laws.

One source of the power of Wilkie Collins's The Moonstone (1868), like the diamond at its heart, is the complex range of interpretations the novel inspires. If the diamond stands, alternatively, as a sign of religious devotion, imperial plunder, colonial revenge, capitalist desire, personal vengeance, sexual experience or psychological integration, the novel equally invites an array of interpretations: it is an orientalist romance, a critique of imperialism, an inheritance plot, an allegory of seduction and, as was most famously claimed by T. S. Eliot, the first and the greatest of modern English detective novels. Regardless of the myriad interpretative meanings the novel offers, however, its narrative force and logic are clear: The Moonstone is an elaborate act of historical detection and reconstruction. By way of an intricate collective narrative performed by a series of individuals who explicitly present their case like witnesses in a trial, this novel dramatises a sustained effort to recover a lost incident, connecting contemporary circumstances with historical origins, and assembling a 'chain of evidence' that will link the present to the past by explaining the truth about a mysterious sequence of events (p. 342). In its complex narrative and in the unfolding of its even more complicated plot, The Moonstone did in fact become the prototypical English detective novel.

The serialisation of The Woman in White in Charles Dickens's new weekly magazine, All the Year Round, between 26 November 1859 and 25 August 1860 has been heralded as the birth of the sensation novel, a fictional phenomenon that has been particularly associated with the 1860s. But what exactly was the sensation novel? Did Wilkie Collins and his contemporaries - such as Mary Elizabeth Braddon, Mrs Henry Wood, Charles Reade, Rhoda Broughton, 'Ouida' (Marie Louise De la Ramée) and Charlotte Riddell - consciously think of themselves as sensation novelists? Was the sensation novel actually a distinct genre or subgenre, or was it rather a label applied to a range of novels by certain kinds of reviewer to express and amplify a particular kind of cultural anxiety? This chapter begins by addressing some of these questions before going on to look at Collins as a sensation novelist, focusing on The Woman in White and No Name (1862).

At the end of the decade that had been dominated by sensations and sensationalism of one kind or another, Thomas Hardy characterised the sensation narrative as 'a long and intricately inwrought chain of circumstance', which usually involved 'murder, blackmail, illegitimacy, impersonation, eavesdropping, multiple secrets, a suggestion of bigamy, amateur and professional detectives'.

THE CODEX OF THE RECEIVED TEXT (M U Ṣ Ḥ A F)

The Qur'ānic text transmitted to us betrays a peculiar composition, essentially different from that of the Hebrew Bible, which pursues salvation history through a roughly chronological sequence of events, and equally different from the Gospels that narrate the essential stages of the founding history of the Christian faith. The Qur'ān does not present a continuous narrative of the past, but in its early texts conjures the future, the imminent day of judgement, and later on enters into a debate with various interlocutors about the implementation of monotheist scripture in the present.

External subdivisions

In terms of form, the Qur'ān is not a sequentially coherent book, made up of sub-units that build on each other, but rather consists in a collection of 114 independent text units, sūras (sūra, pl. suwar) with no evident external link to each other. A sūra is marked by a heading giving its name, and by an introductory invocation, the so-called basmala: 'in the name of God, the compassionate and merciful' (bi-smi llāhi l-rahmāni l-rahim). The term sūra is used in the Qur'ān, though originally referring to undetermined text units, smaller than the eventually fixed sūras. Whereas in some cases the names of the sūras are contested, several sūras being known under more than one name, the introductory formula - that is missing in only one sūra, Q 9 - goes back to the recitation practice of the Prophet's community itself. The sūras vary in length from two-sentence statements to lengthy polythematic communications.

According to a thirteenth-century compilation of qurānic knowledge - a medieval 'companion to the Qur'ān' - the Arabic Qur'ān contains 323,015 letters, 77,439 words, more than 6,000 verses and 114 chapters or sūras. This makes it a rather modestly sized text when contrasted with the Upanishads, the Mahabharata and the Pali canon of Buddhist writings. But why would these titles come immediately to mind as the point of comparison? The quick answer to that question lies in their classification as 'scripture' or 'sacred text' or 'holy writ' or 'divine word' or even 'classics'. These works, and many others that could be added, found their place in the late nineteenth-century publishing project known as The sacred books of the East. That project itself marked an important moment in the conceptual expansion of such categorisation. For centuries, the English term 'scripture', and its equivalents in European languages, had been virtually synonymous with the Bible. While it was recognised, particularly by Christian apologists and missionaries, that other texts were revered by their respective religious communities, that recognition was usually negative and antagonistic.

At the beginning of November 1889, just over a month after Wilkie Collins's death, a lengthy retrospect by Algernon Swinburne appeared in the Fortnightly Review. Surveying the long sweep of Collins's career, Swinburne praised the novelist's narrative flair: 'far beyond the reach of any contemporary, however far above him in the loftier and clearer qualities of genius' (CH, p. 254). However, 'there are many', he went on, 'who think that Wilkie Collins would have a likelier chance of a longer life in the memories of more future readers if he had left nothing behind him but his masterpiece The Moonstone and one or two other stories' (CH, p. 259). Although much of the later fiction had real merit, Swinburne concluded, and 'nothing can be more fatuous than to brand all didactic or missionary fiction as an illegitimate or inferior form of art' (CH, p. 262), Collins's tendency to engage explicitly with social issues after 1870 could often be heavy-handed.

Swinburne's parody of Alexander Pope stuck stubbornly to Collins's later writing through most of the twentieth century: the last two decades of his life are generally regarded as a long-drawn-out creative twilight, punctuated by 'fitful gleams' (Peters, p. 313). The loss of the steadying hand of Charles Dickens in 1870 has been one explanation of this decline, alongside the continuing influence of Charles Reade, whose minutely researched polemical novels and plays addressed topical issues such as prison reform. Collins's failing health, his growing dependence on laudanum and a host of other medications to relieve the agonising pain of ocular gout and rheumatic illness, together with the demands of two families and his theatrical activities have added to this picture, as literary influence, bodily and mental fragility, a complicated personal and professional life, and a more explicit ideological stance have blended into an overarching narrative that has dominated readings of his later work.

The defining moment of Wilkie Collins's career occurred at the turn of the 1860s with the runaway success of The Woman in White. The novel's striking combination of respectable settings and illicit events launched the fashion for 'sensation fiction' which prevailed through much of the next two decades, thus marking a breakthrough in the marketing of fiction as a commodity form. Running as a serial in Charles Dickens's new family weekly All the Year Round from November 1859, the narrative aroused wide interest with its eerily enigmatic opening and deft manipulation of suspense, causing queues on publication day and raising the circulation into six figures. When the novel appeared from Sampson Low in three volumes for the lending libraries in mid-August 1860, it was widely advertised, sold 1,350 copies within the week and received its eighth impression before the end of the year. When the single-volume edition appeared from the same publisher in April 1861, embellished with a signed likeness of the author, Collins had to sit several times for the photographer to keep pace with the demand.

In the Islamic representation, the Qur'ān is the scripture containing the revelations 'recited' by Muhammad and preserved in a fixed, written form. The majority view among Muslim authorities is that qur'ān, an Arabic verbal noun, comes from qara'a, 'to recite', 'to declaim', 'to read aloud'. Some Western scholars, however, think that it is derived from the Syriac qeryānā (reading, scripture, lectionary). That the origin of the word is not Arabic seems to be confirmed by the interpretation given by an ancient exegete of Jewish origin, Abū'Ubayda (d. 209/824-5), who understands what could have been the first revelation delivered by Muhammad: iqra'bi-smi rabbika (Q 96:1; which the majority of the exegetes understand as 'Read/recite: in the name of your lord'), as 'Proclaim/Call upon the name of your lord' (cf. Hebrew: qra bshem adonai; Syriac: qr'ā b-shem māryā).

THE S TATUS OF THE QUR’Ā N DURING MUḤAMMAD’S LIFETIME

The Qur’ān and Muḥammad’s prophetic experience are very closely linked. Often the text responds explicitly to Muḥammad’s historical situation and even sometimes to his domestic problems. The Muslim theological position is that God is the speaker throughout the Qur’ān, Muḥammad the recipient, and the angel Gabriel the intermediary agent of the qur’ānic revelations. But in what seem to be the oldest parts of the Qur’ān, the speaker and the sources of revelation are not mentioned (Q 91:1–10); in some passages there is no indication referring to a deity as a source of the message (Q 103:1–3) and in others Muḥammad seems to be the speaker (Q 81:15–21).

Early in the twentieth century, the notion of what was meant by Western scholarship on the Qur'ān would not have created much discussion. It was quite obvious that the phrase referred to scholarly work on the Qur'ān undertaken by European academics who were not Muslims. Continuing with such an understanding in the twenty-first century is quite problematic, however, both for its suggestion that work by those who declare themselves to be Muslims cannot be included in such a category - this is evidently false as browsing the bookshelf of any scholar today will reveal - and for the vagaries of the term 'scholarly' when it is applied to an intellectual world that is increasingly diverse methodologically and culturally. How are we to distinguish in a meaningful way between the discipline of exegesis (tafsīr) as it might be exercised today by a Muslim living in Europe from that of an academic working in a North American university within the discipline of religious studies? The answer is not necessarily as apparent as both of those individuals may wish to assume.

One might argue that what is intended here by Western scholarship on the Qur'ān is simply that which adopts an approach that involves a nonconfessional ('secular') attitude towards Islam. Such is the shorthand that would often be used in modern discussions.

Wilkie Collins was adept at exploiting the narrative possibilities that the growth of magazine and periodical publishing in the nineteenth century created, and this is evident as much in the shocking, surprising and uncanny effects of his shorter works as it is in the complex plotting, suspense and multiple narrators of his major novels. Characteristically concerned with the disjunctive, inconclusive and oblique, the short story is in many ways a marginal form, which often takes marginal or outlaw figures as its central concern. It troubles itself, and thus its readers, with remarkable or strange events, with the inexplicable, disorderly and queer. Collins's stories share many qualities with his novels - an interest in detection, documentary evidence and the instability of identity, in particular - but they are also significant and distinctive texts in their own right. The flexibility and openness of the short story suited Collins and let him experiment throughout his career, as the relative brevity of the form allows him to explore his interests in erotic rivalry and compulsion, transgressions of the law, and the maskings and doubling of the self. But it is the variety of his shorter fiction that is most striking. In a career spanning nearly half a century, Collins produced not only the detective fiction for which he is best known, but also novellas (Miss or Mrs?, 1873, and The Haunted Hotel, 1879); sentimental Christmas stories (Mr Wray's Cash-Box, 1852); comic stories ('The Fatal Cradle', 1861); 'antighost stories' such as 'The Dead Hand' (1857) and 'John Jago's Ghost' (1873-4), and humorous detective fiction ('The Biter Bit', 1858). In the process he created the first British detective story ('A Stolen Letter', 1854), the first appearance of a police officer ('A Terribly Strange Bed', 1852) and the first woman detective ('The Diary of Anne Rodway', 1856). In 'My Lady's Money' (1877), he even wrote a story featuring a detective dog, another first.

It is not uncommon for people to ask what the Qur'ān (or any other scripture for that matter) actually says on a particular issue. Thus it might be useful to preface this chapter with a few comments on the way that question is framed, and what it presumes. That word 'actually' suggests the questioner believes a text has a single, objectively verifiable meaning. Yet when texts speak - and that is a particularly appropriate verb in the Qur'ān's case - they speak to particular people in particular circumstances. The Qur'ān's meaning, as Wilfred Cantwell Smith has pointed out, is the history of its meanings. That is true in both an internal and an external sense. First, the Qur'ān reflects the history of its own development over the more than twenty years of its address to a varied audience. Second, since the time of its canonisation it has been read by a very diverse community of faith in widely different historical contexts.

So what the Qur'ān 'actually' says, is what it says to actual readers, especially believing readers. No community of faith reads its scripture with a detachment that strives for some elusive objectivity: believers read scriptures, often at the same time reading things into them. Nor are scriptures necessarily read as a whole, with the community feeling it has to reconcile and explain every detail of the text. There are in most traditions what have been called 'canons within the canon'. A 'scriptural' approach to any subject does not emerge simply from the sacred text, but rather brings that text into conversation with other elements both from within and from outside the tradition.

From its beginnings the Qur'ān was first and foremost an oral text. When the prophet Muhammad received a revelation, he spoke or recited the revealed text. It is not clear how long these original, spoken units of revelation were, or whether their length was variant or invariant. The relation between these spoken units and Qur'ānic sūras is also unknown. According to the Islamic tradition, however, the revelation of the different sūras followed a chronology of roughly shorter to longer. The earlier ones were rather short and they tended to become longer as Muhammad's mission and prophetic preaching continued.

CODIFICATION AND RECITATION

In addition to being memorised and transmitted orally, these revealed texts were written down during the life of Muhammad, a process that probably began at an early stage. At least, that is what reports about the collection of the Qur'ān after the Prophet's death relate. The commission under Zayd b. Thābit (d. 32/652-3), which provided the edition of the Qur'ānic text that subsequently became known as the 'Uthmānic codex, based its work on oral material, and on all kinds of written material, such as texts on scraps of wood, palm leaves, bark and bones. Zayd himself is said to have been ordered by Muhammad to record verses of the Qur'ān on the shoulder blade of a camel immediately after a revelation. An older Companion of Muhammad, 'Abdallāh b. Mas'ūd, is reported to have said that he had already written down seventy sūras from the mouth of the Prophet when Zayd was still playing with other little boys.

THE QUR’ĀN AS A POL I T ICAL FACTOR IN PRE-MODERN TIMES

After the 'emigration' (hijra) from Mecca to Yathrib (later Medina) in 622 CE, the Prophet became the acknowledged leader of a community. A fair number of Medinan passages in the Qur'ān are, therefore, of direct social and political relevance. Rules of conduct in relation to other religious groups, most notably Jews and Christians, laws of inheritance, marriage and divorce, but also financial and commercial regulations, rules of warfare and the distribution of booty, retaliation, the treatment of slaves, etc., became part of the holy text. Important basic divisions, social forces and regulations that operated in pre-Islamic society are reflected in the Qur'ān. Numerous customs of pre-Islamic times were absorbed, while others were modified or abrogated. Such customs and rulings constituted the social practices in a tribal, patriarchal and partly nomadic, partly agricultural society. They were designed to shape the life of the early Muslim community under the leadership of the prophet Muhammad. The Qur'ān legitimised the Prophet as the absolute and divinely guided leader of the Muslim community. The frequent Qur'ānic exhortation 'Obey God and his Prophet!' is the central political message to the community. When they were uttered and received as divine revelations, the Prophet's words and rulings were absolutely binding and were later collected in the Qur'ān. Even when the Prophet did not claim his words to be divinely inspired, his utterances were generally held to bind the community, but were regarded as belonging to a different and subordinate text-genre.

Students of Jonathan Edwards now look back to the tercentenary celebrations of his birth in 2003 as the culmination of nearly fifty years of effort to prepare a critical edition of his works. The publication of several volumes in the Yale Edition and conferences in Washington, D.C., Princeton, and elsewhere that year heralded Edwards's many contributions and his ongoing significance. For some, the publication of George M. Marsden's Jonathan Edwards: A Life was the high point. Finally, there was a usable, modern biography of a colonial figure who shaped his own era and continues to shape America and the world nearly 250 years after his death.

Marsden's book made the cover of the New York Times Book Review.1 Edwards had arrived! Those who know the history of Edwards's reception know he did not always occupy such a prominent place in the national psyche. Generations of scholars have learned a common account of Edwards's legacy that goes something like this. Edwards's theological legacy died out by the end of the nineteenth century. He began the twentieth century with few friends and plenty of critics. His greatness was admired from a distance, if at all. In the 1920s, he was called an anachronism for his failure to imbibe the budding democratic spirit of his own age. Edwards was pitied for being a theologian when he could have turned his prodigious mental abilities to philosophy, science, or belles lettres. He was scorned for degrading God and human beings by his insistence on the essential truths of Calvinism. Yet for the most part, he was ignored.

The great preachers of English-speaking civilization have ranked with the greatest creative writers as shapers of the language, and the literature of the printed sermon is voluminous by any standard; yet the sermon has always labored under certain ambiguities peculiar to its genre. Most obvious is the question of exactly what the text of a sermon represents. Is it what was preached, or a literary correlative, or a separate work altogether? To assert that one is discussing the performance or speech act that is preaching when referring only to a printed text is literally untrue; rather, what is being considered is inevitably a form of literature, the author of which must be considered a literary artist as much as anyone working in the various genres of prose and verse.

The critic Edmund Gosse once observed of the seventeenth-century English preacher Jeremy Taylor that his reputation “has been injured among general readers by the fact that he is a divine, and among divines by the fact that he is an artist. ”1 Indeed, the relationship between sermon-making and artistic endeavor involves ambiguities that are probably even more troublesome in America than in England, given the American insistence upon the separateness of the sacred and the secular. For different reasons, perhaps, American clergy and the general public have mutually assumed that sermons are somehow not really “literature ” and that the authors of great sermons are not really “artists. ”