This letter also contains an incomplete autograph letter from William Collins to his wife (p. 4).
Part of a collection of 117 letters from Wilkie Collins to his mother, Harriet Collins. Items in the collection are described in individual records (MA 3150.1-117).
Quoting Mr. Pickwick (from Charles Dickens' The Pickwick papers) and noting that the "principal features" of Shetland are "Dutchmen, Peat bogs, Ragged Ponies, Beggars, and Fine Scenery"; describing his excursions with his father in the Scottish countryside; noting that they visited a site Sir Walter Scott mentioned in The pirate; stating that "correct information is a quality undiscoverable in the common people here"; commenting on the local people's "extraordinary spirit of inquisitiveness"; sending love to his brother [Charles Allston Collins]. The incomplete letter from William Collins further describes their travels.