Wilkie Collins was born in England in 1824 and studied to become a lawyer. On completion of his schooling he adopted literature as his profession and before he was 30 became a good friend of Charles Dickens, editing with Dickens the magazine Household Words. It was in this magazine that Collins published the first story ever to deal seriously with the detection of crime. It was "The Woman in White."

MY LADY'S MONEY was published in midcareer, and is a perfect vignette of its time. The regularity of the era, the sense of place and time, and comfortable circumstances of the author all combine to make MY LADY'S MONEY a memorable and enchanting work.