COLLINS (WILLIAM WILKIE) Autograph letter signed ('Wilkie Collins'), to Mrs Cunliffe, complaining that 'I am (most unfortunately for myself) obliged to occupy my mornings at my desk – beginning a new novel in this frightfully hot weather' and arranging to meet ('...I am entirely at your service. Your will is law...'), 4 pages, engraved heading, 8vo, 90 Gloucester Place, 10 July 1874 Footnotes: 'BEGINNING A NEW NOVEL IN THIS FRIGHTFULLY HOT WEATHER' – Wilkie Collins at work on The Law and the Lady, generally believed to be the first full-length novel with a woman detective as its heroine, as well as being an early example of the genre where an amateur triumphs over the professional, with echoes of real-life cases: 'Developing many of the techniques at work in The Moonstone in bizarre and unexpected ways, and employing both Gothic and fantastic elements, The Law and the Lady adds a significant dimension to the history of the detective novel' (introduction to the Oxford World's Classics edition, edited by Jenny Bourne Taylor, 2008). The novel was to begin serialisation in The Graphic on 26 September 1874, running until 13 March the following year, being published in book form by Chatto & Windus on 15 May 1875. The recipient appears to be Mary Cunliffe, a friend of Collins and many distinguished figures of the day, who has left a series of reminiscences, Notes by the Way (typescript at the Armstrong Baylor Library). For further information on this lot please visit Bonhams.com