In fact Collins was at least as much Melodramatist as novelist: and while most of his novels are melodrama in narrative form, not a few of them were actually dramatised.
"The English Novel"
George Saintsbury
Dickens was meant by Heaven to be the great Melodramatist; so that even his literary end was melodramatic.
"Appreciations and Criticisms of the Works of Charles Dickens"
G. K. Chesterton
The objection to the conventional Melodramatist is that he fails to do this.
"A Book of Prefaces"
H. L. Mencken