Antonina or the Fall of Rome - Third eBook

Fifth-Century Rome: the story of the fourteen-year-old Antonina, the handsome Roman senator Vetranio, the religious fanatic Numerian, the fierce Goisvintha. "To the fictitious characters alone is committed the task of representing the spirit of the age. The Roman emperor, Honorius, and the Gothic king, Alaric, mix but little personally in the business of the story—only appearing in such events, and acting under such circumstances, as the records of history strictly authorize—but exact truth in respect to time, place, and circumstance is observed in every historical event introduced in the plot, from the period of the march of the Gothic invaders over the Alps to the close of the first barbarian blockade of Rome." From the author’s Preface.
With an Italian Introduction for the Bilingual Reader by Leo Wright.

Wilkie Collins (1824-1889), elder son of the landscape and figure painter William, brother of the pre-Raphaelite painter Charles Allston, and a dear friend of Charles Dickens, is universally regarded as the nineteenth-century master of the sensation novel. He was educated in England and in Italy, and was well read in the classics. He was also called to the Bar, but decided to devote himself to literature. Before Antonina (1850), his first novel, he wrote a biography of his father. With Basil (1952) he found his true métier as a specialist in the suspense genre. His other most significant novels are: The Woman in White (1860), No Name (1862), Armadale (1866), and The Moonstone (1968).

Leo Wright is a researcher on the structure and psychology of the Victorian novel.