Published in 1888, The Legacy of Cain is the last of Wilkie Collins’s completed novels. Two sisters, Helen and Eunice, are brought up by their father, Reverend Gracedieu. He has deliberately kept the girls in ignorance of their true ages, to disguise the fact that one of them was adopted after her birth mother was executed for the brutal murder of her husband. In time, both girls fall for the same man, Philip Dunboyne, but when he eventually chooses one of the sisters, events take a sinister turn.

The main narrative is taken up by the governor of the prison where the mother was incarcerated prior to her execution. He has grave concerns that the evil of the executed woman will be inherited by her daughter. But do his fears prove to be well-founded?

Featuring elements of Collins’s earlier sensationalist novels, The Legacy of Cain is a fascinating exploration of the theme of hereditary evil.

Nicholas Boulton leads this multi-cast recording, in the role of the prison governor.