In Basil's secret and unconsummated marriage to the linen-draper's sexually precocious daughter, and the shocking betrayal, insanity, and death that follow, Collins reveals the bustling, commercial London of the nineteenth century wreaking its vengeance on a still powerful aristocratic world. Contemporary reviewers vehemently disapproved of this explicit treatment of adultery; and even today the passionate and lurid atmosphere he creates still has the power to disturb the reader.