COLLINS (WILKIE) Autograph letter signed ('Wilkie Collins') to Charles Gray Robertson ('Dear Sir'), apologising for not writing sooner but he has been '...cruising at sea...', that he is '...sincerely sensible of the compliment which you pay me in opening your columns to my pen...', but he only rarely visits theatres now due to his ill health and that, in any case, '...Modern melodrama is entirely unknown to me by experience... I am not one of the persons addressed by these dramatic productions...', commenting '...The plays are good enough for the audiences - and the only useful protest (which is yet to come) is the public protest under the form of 'houses that don't pay'...'), on his monogrammed letterhead, 3 pages on a bifolium, dust-staining and marks, discolouration, creased at folds, 8vo (176 x 110mm.), Gloucester Place, 21 September 1887 Footnotes: 'MODERN MELODRAMA IS ENTIRELY UNKNOWN TO ME BY EXPERIENCE': WILKIE COLLINS ON THE MODERN THEATRE, AN UNPUBLISHED LETTER. In this rediscovered letter to Charles Gray Robertson, editor of The Court and Society Review, Wilkie Collins expounds his opinion of 'modern melodrama', seemingly as a response to a request from Robertson to act as theatre critic, or at least write a review of a play. Collins had been passionate about the theatre since his youth. Not only was he a prolific playwright and enthusiastic play-goer, he famously took part in amateur theatricals with Charles Dickens in the 1840's and 50's, sketches of which were sold in these rooms in March 2025. Now, dogged by ill health and diminishing eyesight, he explains that, in his view, the standard of current dramatic productions has diminished and hoping that, in the future, audiences will show their displeasure by staying away. Several letters from this date make the excuse that he has been '...cruising at sea...', and his editors confirm that he had indeed been cruising out of Margate from August until the middle of September of that year (Collected Letters, p.263). The recipient of our letter, Charles Gray Robertson (b.1853), had served as a lieutenant in the 8th (The King's) Regiment of Foot under General Roberts in the Second Anglo-Afghan War, and published his experiences as Kurum, Kabul & Kandahar in 1881. After the war he founded the Orange Blossoms, A Marriage Chronicle and Social Review in 1884, which became The Court and Society Journal and finally The Court and Society Review in 1885. A family friend of the Stevenson family, he persuaded Robert Louis Stevenson to contribute the short story Olalla to the 1885 Christmas issue, and the magazine attracted writers such as Oscar Wilde and George Moore (see lot 166). Our letter is not included in Baker, Gasson, Law and Lewis (eds), The Public Face of Wilkie Collins: The Collected Letters, 2005 and is seemingly unpublished elsewhere. Provenance: Discovered in an album compiled by Gerald Caldwell Siordet (1885-1917, artist, critic and poet). Educated at Balliol, he worked for several art institutions such as New English Art Club, the Fine Art Society and the V&A, wrote for The Studio, and numbered John Singer Sargent, Glyn Philpot and Jane Morris among his circle. He died with the Mesopotamia Expeditionary Force in February 1917; his sister Vera Ritchie (née Siordet); thence by descent. For further information on this lot please visit Bonhams.com For further information about this lot please visit the lot listing