The Woman in White

Walter Hartright a struggling drawing teacher, is walking at midnight back to Victorian London after visiting his widowed mother and sister at their cottage, in the suburbs to say goodbye, a quiet trip nobody around, the road empty everything's still, not even the leaves on the trees flicker in the blackness, nothing only his moving steps are heard, thinking about a lucrative job in a faraway county of England, that he reluctantly took ( he has a bad feeling about) because his friend Professor Pesca, a dwarf from Italy arranged it. Shock, something touches him out of the darkness... a ghostly, sick looking woman dressed all in white appears from the shadows, impossible this creature cannot be real... it speaks. A story unfolds, a young woman with a secret put in an insane asylum without being insane , a conspiracy to steal not only wealth but identity. Anne Catherick (The Woman in White) strangely resembles Laura Fairlie, one of two young ladies Mr. Hartright has been hired by her rich, unsocial invalid uncle Fredrick Fairlie, to teach watercolor painting, never mind that she and her half-sister Marian Halcombe have no talent, they need something to pass the time. Laura is very pretty, her sister is very intelligent but plain, but both are devoted to each other, a lonely life at Limmeridge House in Cumberland by the sea. Their uncle rarely sees them, quite fearful of his health a sick hypochondriac, ( kind of funny) not a man of feelings. A sudden love between Walter and Laura, ensues, the teacher and the student but her older wiser sister Marian doesn't approve, Laura is engaged to Sir Percival Glyde, 25 years her senior, a gentleman of seemingly good manners and taste a baronet, who her late father insisted she marry (men could do that then). Mr. Hartright is forced to leave the premises early, later traveling to the jungles of Central America to forget but doesn't, by Marian ( a event that she greatly regrets soon, and Laura more so), his three month employment shortened to two, Mr.Fairlie is not happy, why the puzzled man thinks can't people keep their promises anymore? The extremely obese, brilliant and mysterious Count Fosco, an Italian nobleman he says and good friend of Sir Percival, arrives with his wife Eleanor, she is the icy aunt of Laura and sister of Uncle Frederick, without any family affections. The Count loves animals but isn't fond of people, his pets are his best friends birds and white mice, he plays with, they adore him too. The Woman in White, sends an anonymous letter to the miserable Miss Fairlie, the future bride warning her that Glyde is not a good person. Anne is creeping about in the neighborhood, the Count and the Baronet are nervous , why? But the unhappy wedding day comes between Laura and Percival, that nobody wants but Sir Percival, he has a motive not love but wealth, she has money he has none. Predictably the couple travel across Europe, see many fascinating things on their long honeymoon and hate each other...Back in sweet England at the home of Sir Percival's, Blackwater Park, an appropriate name for the estate, in need of repairs the conspiracy goes forward, Laura and Marian are alone to battle him and the Count and his faithful wife, Eleanor the lurking Anne is still floating about, by the dismal lake nearby, something has to give soon. A wonderful novel from long ago, quite a mystery to be unraveled and one of the first written, still a superb read for fans of the genre, make that great literature.

An epic tale of love,betrayal,deception and revenge.

I generally don't read Victorian novels,but Wilkie Collins' masterpiece is among my favourite books. It is atmospheric,dark,complex and haunting. Despite its sheer length,I found it unputdownable. I liked it sufficiently,to read it all over again,a few years later.

The characters are memorable.There is the upright Walter Hartwright,who strives for justice, the beautful Laura Fairlie,the resourceful Marian Halcombe,the cunning Count Fosco,the unfortunate Anne Cathrick and the dishonest,Percival Glyde.

The technique is interesting. The story is told through mutiple narrators,letters and diary entries.
The sustained tension, superb characterization and a masterfully constructed plot make it memorable.
Fittingly,Wilkie Collins wanted his epitaph to read,"Author of the Woman in White,and other works of fiction."

I'm not sure what I can say about this book that hasn't been said already. It's fantastic, in every sense of the word.

Have you ever been interested to read a Victorian era "classic" but never got around to it because you are concerned that you may not be able to relate? This is the book for you.

If they had airports in the Victorian era this book would be a common sight. I mean this in a complimentary way, not equating Wilkie Collins with modern day blockbusting purveyors of crap like Stephenie Meyer or Dan Brown. This is an edge of the seat thriller that will soon have you forgetting that you reading something written over a century ago. The Woman in White is one of the earliest works of detective fiction and predates Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes by decades.

The Woman in White is not actually about the titular lady with her predilection for colorless attires, though she plays a significant part. The story is about two sisters (stop rolling your eyes back there! this is cool!) one beautiful, kind and vulnerable (OK, she is a bit lame) and the other not so pretty but tough as nails and sharp as a tack. Laura Fairlie (the pretty one) with her excessive niceness is ripe for exploitation and the dastardly handsome Sir Percival Glyde (to whom she is pledged) does not hesitate to do so at the first opportunity. To make matters worse he is aided and abetted by a smooth talking ingenious villain Count Fosco. At this point special mention must be made for two favorite characters from the opposite ends of the moral spectrum. Count Fosco must be one of the most formidable villains in literature, but what make him particularly interesting is his charm, humor, eccentricity and moments of goodness. Fortunately Laura has her own WMD in her half-sister Marian Halcombe, a totally badass Victorian lady who centuries later probably reincarnated as Ellen Ripley. Marian's strong character and resolution really shines through, she comes across as much more heroic than the novel's hero, Walter Hartright who is rather bland and almost useless.

Wilkie Collins has performed an amazing feat of character development in this book, Marian Halcombe and Count Fosco are so vivid they practically jump out of the book at you, you may want to stand well back while reading the book as a precaution. The plot twists and turns in unexpected manners and the final resolution is deeply satisfying. No lover of mystery novels should miss this classic. Beautifully written with very strong characterization, the Woman in White is more than a match to any modern day thriller.

Read this and the equally fabulous The Moonstone by the same author then brag about it to everybody until they start throwing things at you.

Πολύ πολύ καλό, με υπέροχη γραφή και ωραία ατμόσφαιρα στην Αγγλία του 1850!

Δύο αρνητικά για μένα...
Ένα ο όγκος του, πιστεύω ότι θα μπορούσε να παραλήψει αρκετά πράγματα και να ήταν μικρότερο, αν και την εποχή που εκδόθηκε έβγαινε σε συνέχειες οπότε αν ζούσα τότε θα το δικαιολογούσα!
Δεύτερον, το ότι πολλοί από τους χαρακτήρες είναι τόσο ευκολόπιστοι μπουμπούνες, που καταντάει γελοίο. Βέβαια ίσως πάλι εκείνη την εποχή να ήταν όντως τόσο ευκολόπιστοι...και μπουμπούνες!

4,5 αστεράκια

“The lady is dark. She moved forward a few steps – and I said to myself, …”

“… The lady is young. She approached nearer – and I said to myself (with a sense of surprise which words fail me to express), The lady is ugly!”

Marian Halcombe’s unbecoming features and distinct lack of beauty are offset with wit, intelligence, strength of character, bravura and courage, shrewdness, and loyalty. Laura Fairlie, her half-sister, by contrast, suffers a frail disposition and a weak, self-effacing, retiring personality but possesses a comely figure and undeniable facial beauty. Potential readers will not earn any insight points for guessing which one Walter Hartright falls in love with.

Late night on the road to Limmeridge House to undertake a contract as a drawing master, the previously mentioned Walter Hartright first encounters Anne Catherick, the eponymous woman in white, whom the reader learns is a mentally challenged young woman recently escaped from her commitment in an asylum. When he meets Laura and Marian, his student charges, the next day, Walter is shocked at the resemblance between Laura and the woman he had met and helped the previous night under such bizarre circumstances. Of course, notwithstanding their difference in class and Laura’s previous engagement to a wealthy local landowner baronet, Sir Percival Glyde, not to mention her melodramatic propensity for swooning, her heaving bosom and her Victorian tears, her sniffing at cologne and smelling salts, and her suffering from “back of the hand to the forehead” female illnesses, weaknesses, and bedroom confining headaches, Walter and Laura fall in love with each other. To avoid the likelihood of a certain scandal and the loss of reputation that would entail for Laura, Marion advises Hartright to leave Limmeridge House before the completion of his employment contract and he complies.

Shortly thereafter, Sir Percival Glyde, accompanied by his close friend, the outgoing, obsequiously charming, and spectacularly fat Count Fosco, (and his unaccountably surly and always subservient wife) arrives at Limmeridge House seeking to set a date for his contracted marriage to Laura. That arrival is overshadowed by the receipt of an anonymous letter warning Laura not to marry him under any circumstances. The plot begins to thicken quickly and one wonders whether a youthful Sherlock Holmes might have used his oft-repeated aphorism for the first time, “The game is afoot”!

If THE WOMAN IN WHITE were a modern novel (abundant servings of Victorian melodrama and sensation notwithstanding), it would be characterized as a psychological thriller based on criminal identity theft for financial gain. Gain to the tune of £30,000 to be more exact, which was an enormous fortune at the time. Walter Hartright’s and Marian Halcombe’s astute investigations to undercover the nature of the theft and its motives, and their legal machinations to restore the stolen identity to its rightful owner are exciting and compelling. Add in some thematic overtones of greed, misogyny, satire and political commentary on women’s legal rights in the mid-19th century, international spycraft, murder, fraud, adultery, and good old-fashioned criminal skullduggery blended with character development that is simply masterful in its depth and completeness, and it’s no wonder that THE WOMAN IN WHITE, first published in 1860, consistently ranks as one of the best English literature novels ever written and has never been out of print.

Highly recommended, I have no hesitation in adding THE WOMAN IN WHITE to my list of lifetime favourite novels.

Paul Weiss

A fully slowburn Victorian Dickensian mystery, one of those which you have to like the sound of the above to love this book