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Biter Bit and Other Stories
160 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1858
About the author
Wilkie Collins
2,265 books3,143 followersWilkie Collins was an English novelist and playwright, best known for The Woman in White (1860), an early sensation novel, and The Moonstone (1868), a pioneering work of detective fiction. Born to landscape painter William Collins and Harriet Geddes, he spent part of his childhood in Italy and France, learning both languages. Initially working as a tea merchant, he later studied law, though he never practiced. His literary career began with Antonina (1850), and a meeting with Charles Dickens in 1851 proved pivotal. The two became close friends and collaborators, with Collins contributing to Dickens' journals and co-writing dramatic works.
Collins' success peaked in the 1860s with novels that combined suspense with social critique, including No Name (1862), Armadale (1864), and The Moonstone, which established key elements of the modern detective story. His personal life was unconventional—he openly opposed marriage and lived with Caroline Graves and her daughter for much of his life, while also maintaining a separate relationship with Martha Rudd, with whom he had three children.
Plagued by gout, Collins became addicted to laudanum, which affected both his health and later works. Despite declining quality in his writing, he remained a respected figure, mentoring younger authors and advocating for writers' rights. He died in 1889 and was buried in Kensal Green Cemetery. His legacy endures through his influential novels, which laid the groundwork for both sensation fiction and detective literature.
Collins' success peaked in the 1860s with novels that combined suspense with social critique, including No Name (1862), Armadale (1864), and The Moonstone, which established key elements of the modern detective story. His personal life was unconventional—he openly opposed marriage and lived with Caroline Graves and her daughter for much of his life, while also maintaining a separate relationship with Martha Rudd, with whom he had three children.
Plagued by gout, Collins became addicted to laudanum, which affected both his health and later works. Despite declining quality in his writing, he remained a respected figure, mentoring younger authors and advocating for writers' rights. He died in 1889 and was buried in Kensal Green Cemetery. His legacy endures through his influential novels, which laid the groundwork for both sensation fiction and detective literature.
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Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews
July 25, 2023
Interesante lectura.
Wilkie Collins nos presenta distintas historias de policías, detectives y misterio.
Destaca la narración que da título al libro, "The biter bit", ya que se trata de la resolución epistolar de un caso de robo entre el jefe de policía, un sargento y un hombre recomendado.
Una visión diferente del autor de obras tan aclamadas como "La piedra lunar" o "La dama de blanco".
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Interesting reading.
Wilkie Collins presents us with different police, detective and mystery stories.
The title story, "The biter bit", stands out, as it is the epistolary resolution of a robbery case between the chief of police, a sergeant and a recommended man.
A different vision from the author of such acclaimed works as "The Moonstone" and "The Woman in White".
Wilkie Collins nos presenta distintas historias de policías, detectives y misterio.
Destaca la narración que da título al libro, "The biter bit", ya que se trata de la resolución epistolar de un caso de robo entre el jefe de policía, un sargento y un hombre recomendado.
Una visión diferente del autor de obras tan aclamadas como "La piedra lunar" o "La dama de blanco".
--------------------
Interesting reading.
Wilkie Collins presents us with different police, detective and mystery stories.
The title story, "The biter bit", stands out, as it is the epistolary resolution of a robbery case between the chief of police, a sergeant and a recommended man.
A different vision from the author of such acclaimed works as "The Moonstone" and "The Woman in White".
December 3, 2022
The Bitter Bit 3⭐
The Lady of Glenwith Grange 3.25⭐
Gabriel's Marriage 3.5⭐
Mad Monkton 4.5⭐
A Terribly Strange Bed 4⭐
The Lady of Glenwith Grange 3.25⭐
Gabriel's Marriage 3.5⭐
Mad Monkton 4.5⭐
A Terribly Strange Bed 4⭐
October 7, 2016
I only rate The biter bit the only story that i have read. Yo solo evalúo "El cazador cazado" la unica historia, que he leído.
Hilarious a catologue that you do not have to do it in a detection investigation. A classic in the Detection Stories. Divertido catalogo, de lo que no se debe hacer en una investigación policíaca. Un relato clásico en la historia de la novela policíaca.
Hilarious a catologue that you do not have to do it in a detection investigation. A classic in the Detection Stories. Divertido catalogo, de lo que no se debe hacer en una investigación policíaca. Un relato clásico en la historia de la novela policíaca.
September 11, 2022
Wilkie Collins' "Queen of the Hearts" story "The Biter Bit" is Griffith's story in letter form which is concerning a robbery and the novice detective. I knew the answer soon on but it was fun to read this nonetheless.
Story in short - The Chief Inspector puts a conceited young man to test him out to see his chance to become a detective by his finding the thief in a home robbery.
➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖
Highlight (Yellow) | Location 161577
“Certainly there is a story in it,” I replied— “a story of a much lighter kind than any we have yet read, and which may, on that account, prove acceptable, by way of contrast and relief, even if it fails to attract you by other means. I obtained the original correspondence, I must tell you, from the office of the Detective Police of London.” Jessie’s face brightened. “That promises something to begin with,” she said. “Some years since,” I continued, “there was a desire at headquarters
Highlight (Yellow) | Location 161581
to increase the numbers and efficiency of the Detective Police, and I had the honor of being one of the persons privately consulted on that occasion. The chief obstacle to the plan proposed lay in the difficulty of finding new recruits. The ordinary rank and file of the police of London are sober, trustworthy, and courageous men, but as a body they are sadly wanting in intelligence. Knowing this, the authorities took into consideration a scheme, which looked plausible enough on paper, for availing themselves of the
Highlight (Yellow) | Location 161584
services of that proverbially sharp class of men, the experienced clerks in attorney’s offices. Among the persons whose advice was sought on this point, I was the only one who dissented from the arrangement proposed. I felt certain that the really experienced clerks intrusted with conducting private investigations and hunting up lost evidence, were too well paid and too independently situated in their various offices to care about entering the ranks of the Detective Police, and submitting themselves to the rigid
Highlight (Yellow) | Location 161588
discipline of Scotland Yard, and I ventured to predict that the inferior clerks only, whose discretion was not to be trusted, would prove to be the men who volunteered for detective employment. My advice was not taken and the experiment of enlisting the clerks was tried in two or three cases. I was naturally interested in the result, and in due course of time I applied for information in the right quarter. In reply, the originals of the letters of which I am now about to read the copies were sent to me, with an
Highlight (Yellow) | Location 161591
intimation that the correspondence in this particular instance offered a fair specimen of the results of the experiment in the other cases. The letters amused me, and I obtained permission to copy them before I sent them back. You will now hear, therefore, by his own statement, how a certain attorney’s clerk succeeded in conducting a very delicate investigation, and how the regular members of the Detective Police contrived to help him through his first experiment.”
Highlight (Yellow) | Location 161595
BROTHER GRIFFITH’S STORY of THE BITER BIT.
❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌spoiler alert
A young self assured detective thinks he can solve the case that the previous sergeant did not finish. The letters from Matthew Sharpin, LOL on the last name, show that he thinks himself brilliant. I saw soon on that the wife was the one who stole the notes from her husband to pay for her unknown bills. It still was a grand story.
Highlight (Yellow) | Location 161597
FROM CHIEF INSPECTOR THEAKSTONE, OF THE DETECTIVE POLICE, TO SERGEANT BULMER, OF THE SAME FORCE. London, 4th July, 18 — . SERGEANT BULMER — This is to inform you that you are wanted to assist in looking up a case of importance,
Highlight (Yellow) | Location 161599
which will require all the attention of an experienced member of the force. The matter of the robbery on which you are now engaged you will please to shift over to the young man who brings you this letter.
Highlight (Yellow) | Location 161604
A word in your ear, next, about this new man who is to take your place. His name is Matthew Sharpin, and he is to have the chance given him of dashing into our office at one jump — supposing he turns out strong enough to take it. You will naturally ask me how he comes by this privilege. I can only tell you that he has some uncommonly
Highlight (Yellow) | Location 161607
strong interest to back him in certain high quarters, which you and I had better not mention except under our breaths. He has been a lawyer’s clerk, and he is wonderfully conceited in his opinion of himself, as well as mean and underhand, to look at. According to his own account, he leaves his old trade and joins ours of his own free will and preference. You will no more believe that than I do. My notion is, that he has managed to ferret out some private information in connection with the affairs of one of
Highlight (Yellow) | Location 161610
his master’s clients, which makes him rather an awkward customer to keep in the office for the future, and which, at the same time, gives him hold enough over his employer to make it dangerous to drive him into a corner by turning him away. I think the giving him this unheard-of chance among us is, in plain words, pretty much like giving him hush money to keep him quiet. However that may be, Mr. Matthew Sharpin is to have the case now in your hands, and if he succeeds with it he pokes his ugly nose into our
Highlight (Yellow) | Location 161614
office as sure as fate. I put you up to this, sergeant, so that you may not stand in your own light by giving the new man any cause to complain of you at headquarters, and remain yours, FRANCIS THEAKSTONE.
Highlight (Yellow) | Location 161615
FROM MR. MATTHEW SHARPIN TO CHIEF INSPECTOR THEAKSTONE. London, 5th July, 18 — . DEAR SIR — Having now been favored with the necessary instructions from Sergeant Bulmer, I beg to remind you of certain directions which I have received relating to
Highlight (Yellow) | Location 161617
the report of my future proceedings which I am to prepare for examination at headquarters. The object of my writing, and of your examining what I have written before you send it to the higher authorities, is, I am informed, to give me, as an untried hand, the benefit of your advice in case I want it (which I venture to think I shall not) at any stage of my proceedings. As the extraordinary circumstances of the case on which I am now engaged make it impossible for me to absent myself from the place where the
Highlight (Yellow) | Location 161621
robbery was committed until I have made some progress toward discovering the thief, I am necessarily precluded from consulting you personally. Hence the necessity of my writing down the various details, which might perhaps be better communicated by word of mouth. This, if I am not mistaken, is the position in which we are now placed. I state my own impressions on the subject in writing, in order that we may clearly understand each other at the outset; and have the honor to remain your obedient servant,
Story in short - The Chief Inspector puts a conceited young man to test him out to see his chance to become a detective by his finding the thief in a home robbery.
➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖
Highlight (Yellow) | Location 161577
“Certainly there is a story in it,” I replied— “a story of a much lighter kind than any we have yet read, and which may, on that account, prove acceptable, by way of contrast and relief, even if it fails to attract you by other means. I obtained the original correspondence, I must tell you, from the office of the Detective Police of London.” Jessie’s face brightened. “That promises something to begin with,” she said. “Some years since,” I continued, “there was a desire at headquarters
Highlight (Yellow) | Location 161581
to increase the numbers and efficiency of the Detective Police, and I had the honor of being one of the persons privately consulted on that occasion. The chief obstacle to the plan proposed lay in the difficulty of finding new recruits. The ordinary rank and file of the police of London are sober, trustworthy, and courageous men, but as a body they are sadly wanting in intelligence. Knowing this, the authorities took into consideration a scheme, which looked plausible enough on paper, for availing themselves of the
Highlight (Yellow) | Location 161584
services of that proverbially sharp class of men, the experienced clerks in attorney’s offices. Among the persons whose advice was sought on this point, I was the only one who dissented from the arrangement proposed. I felt certain that the really experienced clerks intrusted with conducting private investigations and hunting up lost evidence, were too well paid and too independently situated in their various offices to care about entering the ranks of the Detective Police, and submitting themselves to the rigid
Highlight (Yellow) | Location 161588
discipline of Scotland Yard, and I ventured to predict that the inferior clerks only, whose discretion was not to be trusted, would prove to be the men who volunteered for detective employment. My advice was not taken and the experiment of enlisting the clerks was tried in two or three cases. I was naturally interested in the result, and in due course of time I applied for information in the right quarter. In reply, the originals of the letters of which I am now about to read the copies were sent to me, with an
Highlight (Yellow) | Location 161591
intimation that the correspondence in this particular instance offered a fair specimen of the results of the experiment in the other cases. The letters amused me, and I obtained permission to copy them before I sent them back. You will now hear, therefore, by his own statement, how a certain attorney’s clerk succeeded in conducting a very delicate investigation, and how the regular members of the Detective Police contrived to help him through his first experiment.”
Highlight (Yellow) | Location 161595
BROTHER GRIFFITH’S STORY of THE BITER BIT.
❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌spoiler alert
A young self assured detective thinks he can solve the case that the previous sergeant did not finish. The letters from Matthew Sharpin, LOL on the last name, show that he thinks himself brilliant. I saw soon on that the wife was the one who stole the notes from her husband to pay for her unknown bills. It still was a grand story.
Highlight (Yellow) | Location 161597
FROM CHIEF INSPECTOR THEAKSTONE, OF THE DETECTIVE POLICE, TO SERGEANT BULMER, OF THE SAME FORCE. London, 4th July, 18 — . SERGEANT BULMER — This is to inform you that you are wanted to assist in looking up a case of importance,
Highlight (Yellow) | Location 161599
which will require all the attention of an experienced member of the force. The matter of the robbery on which you are now engaged you will please to shift over to the young man who brings you this letter.
Highlight (Yellow) | Location 161604
A word in your ear, next, about this new man who is to take your place. His name is Matthew Sharpin, and he is to have the chance given him of dashing into our office at one jump — supposing he turns out strong enough to take it. You will naturally ask me how he comes by this privilege. I can only tell you that he has some uncommonly
Highlight (Yellow) | Location 161607
strong interest to back him in certain high quarters, which you and I had better not mention except under our breaths. He has been a lawyer’s clerk, and he is wonderfully conceited in his opinion of himself, as well as mean and underhand, to look at. According to his own account, he leaves his old trade and joins ours of his own free will and preference. You will no more believe that than I do. My notion is, that he has managed to ferret out some private information in connection with the affairs of one of
Highlight (Yellow) | Location 161610
his master’s clients, which makes him rather an awkward customer to keep in the office for the future, and which, at the same time, gives him hold enough over his employer to make it dangerous to drive him into a corner by turning him away. I think the giving him this unheard-of chance among us is, in plain words, pretty much like giving him hush money to keep him quiet. However that may be, Mr. Matthew Sharpin is to have the case now in your hands, and if he succeeds with it he pokes his ugly nose into our
Highlight (Yellow) | Location 161614
office as sure as fate. I put you up to this, sergeant, so that you may not stand in your own light by giving the new man any cause to complain of you at headquarters, and remain yours, FRANCIS THEAKSTONE.
Highlight (Yellow) | Location 161615
FROM MR. MATTHEW SHARPIN TO CHIEF INSPECTOR THEAKSTONE. London, 5th July, 18 — . DEAR SIR — Having now been favored with the necessary instructions from Sergeant Bulmer, I beg to remind you of certain directions which I have received relating to
Highlight (Yellow) | Location 161617
the report of my future proceedings which I am to prepare for examination at headquarters. The object of my writing, and of your examining what I have written before you send it to the higher authorities, is, I am informed, to give me, as an untried hand, the benefit of your advice in case I want it (which I venture to think I shall not) at any stage of my proceedings. As the extraordinary circumstances of the case on which I am now engaged make it impossible for me to absent myself from the place where the
Highlight (Yellow) | Location 161621
robbery was committed until I have made some progress toward discovering the thief, I am necessarily precluded from consulting you personally. Hence the necessity of my writing down the various details, which might perhaps be better communicated by word of mouth. This, if I am not mistaken, is the position in which we are now placed. I state my own impressions on the subject in writing, in order that we may clearly understand each other at the outset; and have the honor to remain your obedient servant,
March 1, 2017
This cover is only the stand-in to the short story I read out of another compilation. It was a little mechanical and dry.
September 1, 2024
Sólo leí el cuento The Biter bit, bastante entretenido. Toda la historia se desarrolla mediante cartas entre un aspirante a detective altanero, su experimentado compañero y el superior de ambos, involucrados en resolver un misterioso robo en el hogar de un empresario venido a menos, la esposa de éste desempeñará un rol crucial en esta investigación que sorprenderá a más de uno.
December 30, 2017
I have only read The Biter Bit and i have high expectations since it came from the ebook
The Greatest Mystery: Detective but i am very much disappointed.
This is probably my least favorite Wilkie Collins book.
The Greatest Mystery: Detective but i am very much disappointed.
This is probably my least favorite Wilkie Collins book.
July 28, 2019
(I read The biter bit only from a different collection.) It is a short story yet Wilkie Collins still managed to pack it with solid cultural context of the time. Very humorously written as well. made me giggle :)
July 14, 2025
Biter bit
Tiene el mérito de ser un relato epistolar
Tiene el mérito de ser un relato epistolar
June 2, 2013
Three short stories:
"The Biter Bit", "A Terribly Strange Bed" and "Mad Monkton".
"The Biter Bit", "A Terribly Strange Bed" and "Mad Monkton".
March 19, 2014
The Biter Bit story
April 28, 2017
I didn't enjoy it.
Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews