Armadale

Two cousins inherit the same name and a history of murder in Wilkie Collins's Armadale. A father's deathbed confession records how one Allan Armadale killed another. His son grows up under that burden, escapes an unhappy home, and lives as Ozias Midwinter. Without revealing their connection, Midwinter becomes the companion of his distant cousin, the younger Allan Armadale.

Friendship does not quiet Midwinter's fear that the past will repeat itself. The men spend a night on the wreck of the ship where the earlier murder occurred, and Allan has a disturbing dream whose scenes appear to anticipate future danger. Allan later inherits Thorpe Ambrose in Norfolk, gaining wealth he is unprepared to manage and falling in love with Major Milroy's young daughter.

Lydia Gwilt brings the hidden family history into the estate's present. Formerly connected to Allan's mother and the conflict between the fathers, she is intelligent, experienced, and determined to secure a fortune. Her schemes place Allan's affection and Midwinter's concealed identity under pressure. Collins combines letters, journal passages, inheritance law, mistaken identity, and ominous coincidence without settling whether the dream is supernatural or psychologically persuasive. The result is sensation fiction driven by the possibility that children may reenact crimes they did not commit.