What an outstanding and brilliant novel!!!
Loved it!!!

"The Woman in White" by Wilkie Collins is without a doubt not only a classic, but much more a gothic story with unforgetable, extraordinary and striking characters..

Mark Twain said that " A classic is something that everybody wants to have read and nobody wants to read"..

But you need to read about count Fosco and his sinister past..
At the end of the day Wilkie Collins novel is about the rights of woman and the unflinching determination of a society intending to protect the status of men having dominion over their wifes..

Also Collins writting evoke reminiscences of Charles Dickens best novels!!!

Full recommendation to all my Goodreads friends..

Dean;)

Walter Hartright es un profesor de dibujo, que de paseo nocturno, de vuelta de de visitar a su madre y a su hermana, se topa una mujer vestida toda de blanco, de aspecto fantasmagórico y enfermizo, que le pide le acompañe a una dirección y no le haga preguntas.
Comienza así una historia donde el joven profesor, ante las necesidades económicas accede a dar clases de pintura a dos jóvenes hermanastras, la pequeña de gran parecido con la mujer con la que se topó la noche pasada. Se establece así el misterio del parecido entre las dos mujeres, el pasado de la joven, un matrimonio concertado con nefastas intenciones, y la relación entre el futuro marido, el tío, el padre, un italiano, la masonería y por supuesto las dos hermanastras y el profesor de pintura, además de otros personajes que son importantes porque serán los que cuenten algunos retazos de la historia.

Me gustaría destacar dos detalles importantes, la estructura, está contada en forma epistolar, de diario, testimonios y notas por los personajes allegados a la trama principal hace que tengas distintos puntos de vista del mismo hecho y al mismo tiempo ir avanzando en el misterio y encajando el rompecabezas para resolverlo. Y en segundo lugar los temas que trata, deja muchas frases memorables del feminismo, de la desigualdad de la mujer, de las herencias, de los derechos de sobre ellas, la infidelidad, la traición y la lealtad.

Una novela que da inicio a las novelas de misterio muy recomendable.

The Woman in White, by Wilkie Collins
I started this book, encouraged by readers of the group “Victorians!” The type of reading “police investigations” is not at all mine: I’ve never read either a Sherlock Holmes or an Agatha Christie, yes, this kind of reader exists! In fact, I’veve always been afraid of not finding in a detective story, deed characters, feeling, poetry.
But, as it would be foolish to reject a type of books without having read a single one, I started The Woman in White. Result ... I'm hooked on this story! My French edition is 500 pages, I read the first 160 pages last night!
The first sentence, simple, concise, is well chosen: it presents the story and immediately intrigues:
« This is the story of what a Woman's patience can endure, and what a Man's resolution can achieve. »
Then, for a few pages, I was a little afraid to find myself in a court, as in a police TV series, which bores me deeply. But, finally, we enter fairly quickly in the story and we are quickly captivated.
The character of Marian Halcombe is a young woman as I like them: intelligent, clairvoyant and good. That of Walter Hartright, who seemed to me soft at first, even lazy, turned out to be a bit romantic and it’s probably this side of his nature that led him to this mysterious story.
For the moment, the police investigation side that I feared doesn’t bother me. Wilkie Collins, apart from the plot, masters the art of knowing when and how to describe nature through the eyes of the drawing-master, the discreet and polite birth of love feelings, the different links weaved between the protagonists depending on whether they’re a woman, a man, according to the social rank, wealth, or degree of friendship or love.
There are some passages of reflections on life that I had already made by myself, such as:
« I have observed, not only in my sister's case, but in the instances of others, that we of the young generation are nothing like so hearty and so impulsive as some of our elders. I constantly see old people flushed and excited by the prospect of some anticipated pleasure which altogether fails to ruffle the tranquillity of their serene grandchildren. »
And also :
« Admiration of those beauties of the inanimate world, which poetry so largely and so eloquently describes, is not, even in the best of us, one of the original instincts of our nature. Those whose lives are most exclusively passed amid the ever-changing wonders of sea and land are also those who are most universally insensible to every aspect of Nature not directly associated with the human interest of their calling. Our capacity of appreciating the beauties of the earth we live on is, in truth, one of the civilised accomplishments which we all learn as an Art. »
In short, I'm happy I started reading my first novel by Wilkie Collins.

And now as usual, the same one in French :

La dame en blanc, de Wilkie Collins

J’ai commencé ce livre, incitée par les lectrices du groupe Victorians! . Le genre enquête policière n’est pas du tout mon genre de lecture : je n’ai jamais lu ni un Sherlock Holmes ni un Agatha Christie, eh oui, ça existe ! En fait, j’ai toujours craint de ne pas trouver dans un roman policier de profondeur des personnages, de sentiment, de poésie.
Mais, comme se serait idiot de rejeter un genre sans avoir lu un seul livre, je me suis lancée. Résultat… je suis accroc à cette histoire ! Mon édition française fait 500 pages, j’en ai lu 160 cette nuit !
La première phrase, simple, conscise, est bien choisie : elle présente l’histoire et intrigue d’emblée :
« Cette histoire montre avec quel courage une femme peut supporter les épreuves de la vie et ce dont un homme est capable pour arriver à ses fins. »
Puis, pendant quelques pages, j’ai eu un peu peur de me retrouver dans un tribunal, comme dans un feuilleton télévisé policier, ce qui m’ennuie profondément. Mais, finalement, on entre assez rapidement dans l’histoire et on est assez vite captivé.
Le personnage de Marian Halcombe est une jeune femme comme je les aime : intelligente, clairvoyante et bonne. Celui de Walter Hartright, qui m’a semblé mou au départ, voire, fainéant, s’est avéré être un brin romantique et c’est sans doute ce côté de sa nature qui l’a entraîné dans cette mystérieuse histoire.
Pour le moment, le côté enquête policière que je redoutais ne me gêne pas. Wilkie Collins, hormis l’intrigue, maîtrise l’art de savoir quand et comment décrire la nature à travers les yeux du professeur de dessin, la naissance discrète et polie des sentiments amoureux, les différentes liés tissés entre eux par chaque personnage selon qu’il est une femme, un homme, selon son rang social, sa richesse, son degré d’amitié ou d’amour.
Il y a certains passages de réflexions sur la vie que je m’étais déjà faites, telles que :
« J’ai observé, non seulement chez ma sœur, mais aussi chez d’autres jeunes gens, que notre génération est beaucoup moins expensive que celle de nos parents. Je vois continuellement des personnes âgées, joyeuses et agitées devant la perspective de quelque plaisir qui ne trouble même pas la tranquilité de leurs enfants ou petits-enfants. »
Et aussi :
« L’admiration pour les splendeurs inanimées de la nature que la poésie décrit avec tant d’éloquence n’existe pas à l’état latent dans notre être intime. Ceux dont la vie s’écoule au milieu des merveilles toujours changeantes de la terre et de la mer sont précisemment ceux qui s’y interessent le mpins, à moins que ces changements continuels ne soient étroitement liés à leur profession. C’est tout un art de savoir apprécier les merveilles de l’univers sensible, et c’est ce que la civilisation nous enseigne chaque jour. »
Bref, je suis bien contente d’avoir commencé à lire mon premier roman de Wilkie Collins.

Sometimes it is so damn hard to put your mindspace in the right place to enjoy a piece so far out of your frame, and this is definitely one of those books.

I knew a bit of what I might expect, after all, I did enjoy reading Drood and so I got a real hankering to read an actual extremely popular novel by such a wild character in a modern book about Wilkie and Charles. But that's neither here nor there. I probably wouldn't have ever picked this one up without it, though.

On to the novel at hand. It's a mystery! And if I can believe wikipedia, it's one of the very first ever written, and considered to be one of the top 100 novels ever written! Whoopie! I mean, that's all great and all. But did I enjoy it? Actually... I did. To a degree.

Of course, the mental gymnastics were pretty strenuous. After all, I have to suspend belief that Laura was NOT TSTL. Tstl? Yes. Tstl. Every step of the way, she made the most horrible decisions, either by not listening to her heart or not having a brain in her head. If this were a mystery novel of even 20 years after its written date of 1854, we'd have killed this one off like a redshirt for sure. Therefore, I am UTTERLY AMAZED by the ending. I've never seen such brilliant contrivance to make such an unlikable airhead pull through to the very end, have her love, her fortune, and her unwitting revenge upon all who had assailed her.

I mean, WOW. Wilkie Collins is a MASTER.

That being said, I thought the Count was pretty much awesome. Everyone except for Laura and Walter managed to transform themselves from cardboard cutouts into genuine people full of both good and bad.

Sometimes the descriptions were cumbersome and made me wish for a bit of a Hemingway Edit, but that's a complaint I can make about any of the literature of that day. There was one notable exception. I loved our enlightenment of Count Fosco's animals. It's details like this that turn a sensational-ish novel into something a bit more memorable.

I swear, though: Laura was consistently tstl. Thank GOD for her half-sister. Miss Halcombe was pretty damn awesome from start to finish, and I agree 100% with the Count's esteem of her.

The one thing I cannot be more pleased about, after finishing this, is the fact that there wasn't some long-drawn-out court scene so reminiscent of modern police drama or mysteries. We had the hint of it in the beginning, and it could have gone that way, but I can't be happier with the outcome as it actually occurred.

There was a hell of a lot of expanded plot in this novel, and it was all so logical and well thought out. I'm just so damn AMAZED that the whole society in which they lived was actually able to FUNCTION, ya know? How could people trust each other as much as they did? How could people be so INNOCENT? I mean, really? Really? Was it a function of the black and white nature of the novels of the time to pop all of these features out at us in stark and glowing detail? Or was it just Wilkie? Or was it in actual fact, a real piece of the society in which they all lived?

I'm primarily a sf/f/horror fan, but I truly HAVE read a ton of traditional classics. And yet, I'm still forced to set myself into a Victorian England as if it is some truly alien society so foreign and strange to us. It's funny. I should know better. Life is WEIRD.

Las novelas de misterio y detectives no serían lo mismo sin las aportaciones que realizó Wilkie Collins durante el siglo XIX. Dentro del fenómeno victoriano, que encandiló a los lectores ingleses con narraciones novedosas, modernas y apasionadas, Collins consiguió hacerse un hueco con sus historias enrevesadas, subtramas y grandes momentos de tensión que no eran nada comunes en la época.

Estas características están todas presentes en La mujer de blanco, probablemente la obra más influyente y exitosa de toda su carrera literaria. La historia se inicia con Walter Hartright cuando, en la víspera de empezar su nuevo trabajo como profesor de dibujo en Limmeridge House, se encuentra con una mujer vestida de blanco en la carretera que le pide indicaciones para poder llegar a Londres. Este suceso, aparentemente inocente, provocará toda una serie de consecuencias en el futuro de varios personajes y familias, con secretos que han permanecido en la sombra durante muchos años.

Uno de los mayores aciertos de La mujer de blanco es su estructura. El entramado avanza gracias a un enfoque narrativo múltiple, en el que cada personaje aporta su particular visión de la historia a través de diarios, cartas y manuscritos. Este método ofrece una agilidad asombrosa al relato, además de ofrecer pistas con cuentagotas, con las que poder recrear los sucesos tal y como ocurrieron.

Collins utiliza temas que ya había tratado en otras novelas, pero demostrando una originalidad y un control de la narración sorprendente incluso en la actualidad, en el que el panorama literario está plagado de thrillers y novelas de suspense con el gran desafío de impactar al lector. En este caso el autor mantiene un ritmo trepidante pese al elevado número de páginas, cerrando todas las tramas y dando sentido a cada relato, a cada movimiento sospechoso y a cada conversación malinterpretada.

Así, vuelve a orquestar de manera magistral todas las obsesiones que aparecen en muchas de sus obras: relaciones familiares, herencias y secretos inconfesables, con unos personajes inolvidables que dan sentido a la trama. Todos están perfilados con una singularidad brillante: desde los verdaderos héroes de la novela hasta los grandes villanos, cada uno de ellos está caracterizado de forma memorable e inteligente. Los diálogos entre ellos, cargados de acidez, ironía e ingenio, son una prueba más del buen trabajo del escritor.

En ocasiones es importante encontrar un libro con el que simplemente poder disfrutar con cada una de sus páginas. No es necesario un giro moral, o un aprendizaje profundo. El fin de muchos libros (y, por tanto, uno de los principales objetivos en la literatura) es el puro entretenimiento. La mujer de blanco, en ese sentido, consigue su propósito con una perfección difícilmente igualable. Su transformación de una novela gótica y siniestra a una mucho más detectivesca sólo confirma la prodigiosa destreza de Wilkie Collins para presentar una gran historia que se ha convertido indiscutiblemente en uno de los mayores pilares en el género.

"The Woman in White" is a literary rollercoaster with enough twists and turns to make your Victorian bonnet fly off. If you crave a good old-fashioned Victorian potboiler, a story that will keep you guessing until the very last page, then this book is the perfect escape. Consider Walter Hartright, a young artist with a penchant for damsels in distress. He encounters a mysterious woman in white who seems to have escaped from a horror movie (and possibly an asylum).
The true star, however, is not the titular woman (though her wardrobe choices are a scream), but Marian Halcombe. This heroine is a ray of sunshine in a story perpetually shrouded in fog. She's whip-smart, fiercely independent, and has a withering stare that could curdle milk at twenty paces.
It's deliciously melodramatic (the melodrama is thicker than stew, and some plot points are so outrageous, they'd make Charles Dickens raise an eyebrow, but that's precisely the charm of book), fiendishly suspenseful, a tantalising tale of love, betrayal, and deception, guaranteed to keep you hooked. Gothic chills, and mysteries that will leave you shouting at the book (because seriously, Walter, how can you be so dense? bless his heart, Walter Hartright tries, but sometimes a good haircut just doesn't cut it).

112th book of 2022.

Growing up, on my parents bookcase, the only things I remember seeing, in abundance, was Wilkie Collins, Thomas Hardy, Jane Austen, and the like. All very English. (Though, weirdly, the only memories I have of my father reading was Steinbeck, mostly East of Eden around my brother and I screaming, fighting, etc.) It's taken me this long to crack open a Wilkie Collins novel and give him a try, knowing my parents were fans of his. First of all, he is a storyteller, and some of his sentences have wonderful pacing. Several times I was pleasantly surprised by the power of some of his sentences. Like with most 19th century novels, though, this book is just too long. It stands at nearly 700 pages and just doesn't need to be. 400/500, it might have been a decent novel. It is often called the 'first' novel that that combined 'Gothic horror with psychological realism'. Its epistolary structure isn't one I usually favour but the changing narrators did give the story something and the first few hundred pages were compelling, particularly the very first one-hundred. The middle section was just a giant baggy monster and by the last few hundred, the novel lost a lot of what it had going for it in the beginning. It took me ten days to read this, some bits flew, some bits dragged. I'd like to read some more Collins, some of his shorter novels, to see how his pacing and stories are elsewhere. I like him, but this one needed some more rocket fuel.

This is my second time around with The Woman in White and I think my first impression was basically the same as this one.
The first 1/3 of the book is boring as hell. It's full-up with a lot of Walter pining for Laura, Laura crying into her handkerchief, and Marian pushing everyone into doing the right thing.
It's not only a bunch of class nonsense that separates our lovers, but it's chock full of silliness like people suffering a shock and nearly dying from it, or keeping insane promises to dead parents to their own detriment. <--no parent wants that!
It was overdramatic bullshit and it made it very hard for me to stick with the story.



The middle of the book kind of picks up the pace. You aren’t biting your nails or anything, but you are fully involved with the drama.
Better. Much better.



The last part of the book makes it all worthwhile. Colins does not skimp on doling out the secrets or wrapping up loose ends. You find out not only whodunnit but why they dunnit.
You also get a fantastic ending for these characters that you’ve been on an emotional roller coaster with for such a long time. Well done, sir.



This was serialized in a newspaper.



Which means two things to me. One, this was a book made for the sweaty peasants, so it has a good chance of being quite a bit more fun than whatever shit was published for the intellectuals of the day.



Two, it's going to read like a television series instead of a movie. In other words, the story is going to be less concise because it was meant to last longer and therefore will ramble a bit to pump up the page count.
Prepare yourself accordingly.



Bottom line for me is that if you can make it through the really dull bits in the beginning, you'll probably really like the way Collins manages to bring everything full circle and wrap it up.
However, even with a well-narrated audiobook, I had to stop after a few hours of this and go listen to a trashy romance novel because I was just drifting off due to boredom. I eventually made myself sort of gut it out, and I'm glad I did, but I can honestly see why several of the people I've talked to never managed to finish this one. I'm giving it 4 stars but that's an overall grade that hinges on the last half being very well done. You really have to knuckle down and get ready to slog through a lot of dull garbage on the front half to get to the payoff.
I know that this one is more well-known, but I actually thought Moonstone was a better overall book.

2009
I almost gave up on this book. The first half of the story seemed to drag on and on endlessly. I'll admit I'm not one who appreciates vivid descriptions of scenery or weather. It had me screaming, "Get on with the good stuff!" more than a few times. That being said, the second half of the book was great! I stayed up well past my bedtime to finish it! There were quite a few "gotcha!" moments in it that I really enjoyed! The ending surprised me only because I wasn't expecting everyone to make it out alive, much less live happily ever after. In fact, I thought poor Laura would be dead by the second or third chapter. Anyway, I liked it.

At the ripe age of sixty, I make this unparalleled confession. Youths! I invoke your sympathy. Maidens! I claim your tears.

So finally, finally I got around to reading the classic that is The Woman in White.

About the book, I am so glad I read it. I didn't love it, but I fully acknowledge that it is a remarkable book and, its time, must have caused quite a stir.
I loved the narration from several points of view - basically, every character got their say at one point. Even a grave stone got a paragraph to tell part of the story!

I loved the plot and the twists - but I won't go into them because, erm, spoilers and such - even tho I already had a good idea of where the plot was going to go.

I loved that there was such a mix of characters. From the courageous, to the devious, to the whiny, to the downright pathetic. And no, the "hero" of the piece was not necessarily the best character.

In fact, Walter Hartwright was such an annoying, whiny, lovesick puppy for the first part of the book that I felt some great relief when another character took over the narration.
Luckily, Walter improved later in the book. (Although, he remained a condescending git.)

The second main character, Laura, was no better. If there was a quote to describe her, this would be my pick:

"I am so useless— I am such a burden on both of you," she answered, with a weary, hopeless sigh. "You work and get money, Walter, and Marian helps you. Why is there nothing I can do? You will end in liking Marian better than you like me— you will, because I am so helpless! Oh, don't, don't, don't treat me like a child!"

Luckily, Laura is absent for much of the book because.....ahaha....it's a mystery.

No, my favourite character of this book was Marian Halcombe, whom Walter (the main character) describes as follows on their first encounter:

The easy elegance of every movement of her limbs and body as soon as she began to advance from the far end of the room, set me in a flutter of expectation to see her face clearly. She left the window— and I said to myself, 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!
Never was the old conventional maxim, that Nature cannot err, more flatly contradicted— never was the fair promise of a lovely figure more strangely and startlingly belied by the face and head that crowned it. The lady's complexion was almost swarthy, and the dark down on her upper lip was almost a moustache.
She had a large, firm, masculine mouth and jaw; prominent, piercing, resolute brown eyes; and thick, coal-black hair, growing unusually low down on her forehead. Her expression— bright, frank, and intelligent— appeared, while she was silent, to be altogether wanting in those feminine attractions of gentleness and pliability, without which the beauty of the handsomest woman alive is beauty incomplete.

Well, as I said, Walter was a bit of a git. However, this is one of the examples in the book that shows how Collins set out his narratives and that he did to include humor, even if it was kinda shallow.

Some of us rush through life, and some of us saunter through life. Mrs. Vesey SAT through life.
All of this was very well. Good writing, a well laid out plot, a romantic element, experimental writing (for its time), fascinating characters, ...
So, why did The Woman in White not sweep me off my feet?

I guess the simple answer to this is that the story dragged. A LOT. I'm at a loss to see why we needed to read the Third Epoch, other than this having being printed as a serial originally and Collins obviously kept the story going for a paycheck.

Had he cut some of the overly detailed explanations at the end I would have enjoyed this much, much more. Alas, he didn't. Just could not come to the point, which reminded me of all the things that were so annoying about Walter in the beginning of the book - it took him ages to come to a conclusion about his feelings that were just so obvious:

I loved her. Ah! how well I know all the sadness and all the mockery that is contained in those three words. I can sigh over my mournful confession with the tenderest woman who reads it and pities me. I can laugh at it as bitterly as the hardest man who tosses it from him in contempt. I loved her! Feel for me, or despise me, I confess it with the same immovable resolution to own the truth.

No shit, Sherlock.

Τι φοβερός τύπος που πρέπει να ήταν ο Wilkie Collins! Μποέμ, αγαπούσε τα ταξίδια, τις αισθησιακές απολαύσεις, την ελευθερία. Αγαπούσε τις γυναίκες αλλά όχι τον γάμο. Φίλος με τον Ντίκενς. Θα μου άρεσε πολύ ένα δείπνο μαζί του.

Η γυναίκα με τα άσπρα είναι ένα βιβλίο που έχει πολλά! Περιπέτεια, μυστήριο, έρωτα, συγκίνηση. Είναι συναρπαστικό! Αυτό που αγάπησα περισσότερο ήταν η δομή του. Οι χαρακτήρες εναλλάσσονται και αφηγούνται οι ίδιοι σαν να είναι μάρτυρες σε δίκη. Η πλοκή είναι συναρπαστική και το κουβάρι ξετυλίγεται και ξεμπερδεύεται σιγά-σιγά.
Απολαυστική εμπειρία. Δεν με κούρασε, παρά το μεγάλο μέγεθος. Λάτρεψα τη Μάριαν. Θα μου λείψουν όλοι οι ήρωες πάντως.
Σκέφτομαι να συνεχίσω σύντομα και με το Αρμαντέιλ. Ο Wilkie Collins είναι εθισμός.

Αυτό το βιβλίο που γνώρισε πρωτοφανή απήχηση στην εποχή του και καθήλωσε το βικτωριανό αναγνωστικό κοινό με την πρωτότυπη ιστορία του και την καινοτομία του ως προς την ανάπτυξη της πλοκής του (στην εισαγωγή διαβάζουμε ότι στοιχήματα έμπαιναν σε σχέση με τα μυστήρια που εξελίσσονται κάθε εβδομάδα που δημοσιευόταν το επόμενο τεύχος της εφημερίδας) παραμένει, πάνω από ενάμιση αιωνα μετά το ίδιο καθηλωτικό - και απολαυστικό.

While the book was too long because it was written as a newspaper serial- I still found it very intriguing. Charles Dickens was the editor and you can see his influence in the work. The book was a adapted to a very successful London Play.
Dialogue was brilliant with hidden meanings and foreshadowing was excellent. If you like Victorian England- this is your book.