Original sentence: Armadale, the first and only of Collins' major novels of the 1860s to be serialised in a magazine other than Dickens' All the Year Round, provoked strong criticism, generally centered upon its transgressive villainess Lydia Gwilt; and provoked in part by Collins's typically confrontational preface.His works were classified at the time as 'sensation novels', a genre seen nowadays as the precursor to detective fiction and suspense fiction.However, various factors (most often cited is the death of Dickens in 1870 and thus the loss of his literary mentoring; Collins's increased dependence upon laudanum; and a somewhat ill-advised penchant for using his fiction to rail against social injustices) appear to have led to a decline in the two decades following the success of his sensation novels of the 1860s
Edited sentence: Armadale, the first and only of Collins' major novels of the 1860s to be serialised in a magazine other than All the Year Round, provoked strong criticism, generally centered upon its transgressive villainess Lydia Gwilt; and provoked in part by Collins's typically confrontational preface.His works were classified at the time as 'sensation novels', a genre seen nowadays as the precursor to detective fiction and [suspense fiction.However, various factors (most often cited are the death of Dickens in 1870 and thus the loss of his literary mentoring; Collins's increased dependence upon laudanum; and a somewhat ill-advised penchant for using his fiction to rail against social injustices) appear to have led to a decline in the two decades following the success of his sensation novels of the 1860s