William Wilkie Collins (1824-1889) was an English novelist and playwright, best known for The Woman in White and The Moonstone. The Evil Genius was ahead of its time in presenting both the wife and the mistress of an adulterous husband in a sympathetic light and concentrating on the plight of the child involved in the break-up of a marriage. The "evil genius" of the title is an interfering mother-in-law.