When a young aristocrat negotiates a secret marriage to a seventeen-year-old girl, he assents to her father's condition that they not live together for the first year. However, the consequences are tragic for all involved when, the year almost up, Basil catches his bride in a compromising position. A story of love at first sight, Basil was the second novel from Victorian author Wilkie Collins, best-known for The Woman in White. A 1998 film adaptation starred Academy Award-winner Jared Leto as Basil and Claire Forlani (Meet Joe Black) as his young wife.