Publisher's Synopsis
After Dark is Wilkie Collins's first collection of six short stories, published in 1856. Collins provides a narrative framework, 'Leaves from Leah's Diary', set in 1827. Leah Kerby's husband, William, is a poor travelling portrait-painter forced to abandon his profession for six months in order to save his sight. Leah realises that if she acts as amanuensis William can support them by turning author. This situation may have been prompted by a period of eye-trouble suffered by Collins's father. In the preface to After Dark, Collins also acknowledges the painter W. S. Herrick as his source for the facts on which 'A Terribly Strange Bed' and 'The Yellow Mask' are based.
