Thesis (M.A.) -- Central Connecticut State University, 2006. / Thesis advisor: Jason Jones. "... in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in English." Includes bibliographical references (leaves 64-69). Also available via the World Wide Web.

Thesis (doctoral)--University of Wales (U.C.N.W., Bangor: English), 1987. / BLDSC reference no.: DX81696.

Th. Etat--Lett.--Paris 3, 1976. / Bibliogr. p. 781-842.

Thesis (B.A.)--Haverford College, Dept. of English, 2006. / Includes bibliographical references.

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'The World is Hard on Women'; Women and Marriage in the Novels of Wilkie Collins" examines the ways in which Collins sympathetically explores the situations of women in relation to marriage and to society in general. Each of the first five chapters deals with a particular topic relating to women and marriage, showing how these topical themes recur and develop through Collins's novels. Chapter One, "Marriage, Money and Power", looks at mercenary marriages in which husbands exploit there wives, or in which wives attempt to exploit their husbands. Chapter Two, "The Magdalen Theme", examines Collins's treatment of the question of "fallen" women, and his different attempts to plead for the reintegration of such women back into the fabric of conventional society. Chapter Three, "Marriage Breakdowns", discusses the situation of women who find themselves deserted by their husbands, and facing a hostile and Judgemental reaction from their social peers. Chapter Four, "Unmarried Women", shows Collins's sympathetic portrayal of diminution of power and importance of those women who either choose not to, or who are unable to marry. Chapter Five, "Widows" discusses the role played by widows as trustees of male power, and guardians to the younger generation. Chapter Six, "The Fallen Leaves", draws on the material discussed in the first five chapters in order to make a detailed examination of Collins's extensive treatment of topics related to women and marriage in The Fallen Leaves. The thesis concludes that Collins was very aware of, and radically sympathetic to the problems faced by women in Victorian society, and that this sympathy and knowledge form an important feature of his writing.

Thesis (M.A.) in Liberal Studies--University of Maine, 2002. / Includes vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 41-44).

Thesis (M. A.)--University of Tasmania, 1981. / "May 1981." Includes bibliographical references (leaves 262-266). Also available in print format.

Thesis (M. A.)--University of Canterbury, 2006. / Typescript (photocopy). Includes bibliographical references (leaves 103-108). Also available via the World Wide Web.

The term "feminist," when applied to Wilkie Collins, implies he was concerned with rectifying the oppression of women in domestic life as well as with promoting equal rights between the sexes. This study explores Collins the "feminist" by analyzing his portrayals of women, particularly his most powerful feminine creations: his villainesses. Although this focus is somewhat limited, it allows for a detailed analysis of the development of Collins's attitudes towards powerful women from the beginning to the end of his career. It examines the relationship between Collins's developing moral attitudes and social beliefs, on the one hand, and the ideas of Victorian feminists such as Josephine Butler and feminist sympathizers such as John Stuart Mill, on the other. This interaction, while never overt, reveals the ambivalence and complexity of Collins's "feminist" attitudes. Of the five novels in this study, Antonina (1850), Basil (1852), Armadale (1866), Jezebel's Daughter (1880), and The Legacy of Cain (1889), only one was published at the zenith of Collins's career in the 1860s. Each of the villainesses in these novels, their ideas and experiences, are crucial to understanding Collins's "feminist" impulses. Looking at them as powerful women who detest domestic oppression, one becomes aware that Collins feared such powerful women. But at the same time, he found something fiercely attractive about them. One also realizes that he was never fully capable of breaking the prevailing literary conventions which dictated that wickedness be punished and virtue rewarded (The Legacy of Cain is perhaps an exception, depending on how one views Helena's feminist revolution). The reading of Collins's novels offered in this study presents a broad, eclectic approach, utilizing the tenets of a number of different theoretical approaches such as new historicism, psychoanalytic criticism, and deconstruction, as well as feminist criticism. It contextualizes Collins's novels and his "feminist" concerns within the framework of other contemporary feminist ideas and the critical responses his works received.