Wilkie Collins was an English novelist, poet, and playwright writing in the mid 19th century. His writing was very popular consisting of 27 novels, 50 short stories, 15 plays and over 100 poems. His best-known works were The Woman in White, The Moonstone and Armadale. Collins was greatly influenced by his friend Charles Dickens. . In The New Magdalen Collins attacks the attitudes of society toward the fallen woman. The year was 1870, which was the time of the war between France and Germany. The characters in the story are Captain Arnault, of the French army; Surgeon Surville, of the French ambulance corps; Surgeon Wetzel, of the German army; Mercy Merrick, attached as nurse to the French ambulance corps; and Grace Roseberry, a traveling lady on her way to England.