WARNING: Contains plot spoilers. Although it saves you the trouble of reading this terrible novel. Do yourself a favour and read Armadale instead.
Wilkie Collins, looking decently ashamed of himself
The Fallen Leaves (1879) is generally considered to be Wilkie Collins’ worst novel, and for once I am inclined to agree with the majority view. It’s hard to credit that the masterful creator of The Woman in White and Armadale could also be responsible for such a turgid story. The ‘Fallen Leaves’ of the title are introduced as “The people who have drawn blanks in the lottery of life … the friendless and the lonely, the wounded and the lost,” which alerts the reader to the excessive moralising that ensues. The novel actually starts rather well, with dastardly fortune hunter John Farnaby impregnating his girlfriend, Emma Ronald, thereby forcing her parents to approve their ill-advised marriage. Once he’s got his feet under the table, he arranges for the baby to be kidnapped, thereby escaping the stigma and inconvenience of a child conceived out of wedlock. The girl’s whereabouts remain unknown until the arrival of a Christian Socialist with the unlikely name of Amelius Goldenheart.
Goldenheart has been temporarily banished from a utopian community in the US, following an unsanctioned relationship with an older woman. Emma Farnaby confides in him her heartbreak at having been separated from her child for 16 years, and asks him to help reunite them. She shows him a distinguishing mark that she shares with her daughter: a webbed left foot. Their conversation is overheard by a passerby who is no better than she ought to be, and passes the information to her dastardly lover, who uses it to exhort money from Emma, claiming he knows the whereabouts of her daughter.
Not content with playing detective, Goldenheart falls in love with Emma’s aloof niece, Regina, who is not entirely convinced by the merits of a man on a low income. He also encounters a young prostitute, Simple Sally, who has been badly beaten by her pimp. Overcome with sympathy, he allows her to stay with him, thereby exciting comment and incurring the wrath of Regina. While soothing Sally’s bruised and swollen feet, he makes the not so startling discovery that she has webbed toes.
By this time, Emma Farnaby has lost all hope of ever seeing her long-lost daughter, and has also discovered that her husband arranged the kidnapping. In a fit of anguish, she swallows strychnine, although survives long enough for Goldenheart to deliver Sally into her arms for a brief reunion, in which Collins leaves no cheese unturned. Needless to say, Goldenheart and Sally then marry, much to the horror of polite society. Collins then threatens the reader with a sequel in which the marriage collapses under the weight of outside pressures. Fortunately, the poor reception of The Fallen Leaves meant that he decided to leave the Goldenhearts alone.
Notwithstanding my criticisms, there are some good points in the novel. Collins’ fairly frank description of a teenaged prostitute beaten by the man who is exploiting her is genuinely shocking, and quite radical for its time. Also, Emma Farnaby’s determination to leave her husband, taking her money and relinquishing his name is striking, especially given the novel was written before the 1882 Married Women’s Property Act, when it was very difficult for a woman to reclaim her own identity and wealth without a messy (and potentially unsuccessful) divorce trial. The sensational and engaging elements are unfortunately interspersed with interminable descriptions of the utopian community, and a prodigious quantity of didactic hot air. Many of the plot twists are also preceded by a red flag. Not Mr Collins’ finest hour.
The Fallen Leaves by Wilkie Collins