Charles Dickens & Wilkie Collins 
The Perils of Certain English Prisoners 

A classic collaboration between two literary giants, The Perils of Certain English Prisoners is a gripping adventure story filled with murder, intrigue and strong female characters. Following on from the success of The Lazy Tour of Two Idle Apprentices, Hesperus presents another collaboration from close friends and literary giants, Charles Dickens and Wilkie Collins. Their legendary friendship resulted in a number of joint literary ventures – in this case Collins wrote the second chapter under Dickens’ supervision. Inspired by events of the Indian Mutiny in 1857, but wishing to distance himself from the context of India itself, Dickens chose to set his novella in Central America. Fascinating in its use of female heroines, The Perils of Certain English Prisoners is an adventure story. On an island near the English colony of Belize, a silver mine is overrun by pirates, these in turn murder a number of English colonists and take the remaining prisoner. In the diverting narrative that follows, the initiative of intrepid women prisoners enables the captives to escape.