The Woman in White

DON'T READ THIS BOOK, unless you've got the patience, stamina, and requisite taste for a quintessential mid-Victorian novel. If you don't, you'll think The Woman in White is terribly overwrought and 500 pages too long. If you like Victorian writing, you'll think this is a well-drawn, balanced novel with characters to root for, characters to despise, a twisting plot that rolls up seamlessly, and narrated ingeniously from multiple points of view. If you're unsure whether you like or dislike Victorian writing, this book is an outstanding introductory choice, and it's one that I recommend unreservedly, to you and to my friends. Some facts in its favor: it was considered the first English sensation novel of the psychological mystery genre, has been continuously in print for 150 years, has a 4+ star rating from over 5700 Goodread reviews, and was written by a guy named Wilkie.

The most prominent, intrinsic hurdle of The Woman in White is the writing. If you haven't had exposure to authors such as Charles Dickens, Henry James, Victor Hugo, the Bronte sisters, Oliver Wendell Holmes, then you haven't been tested by fire with the length and circuitousness of Victorian writing. It could take a page or paragraph to describe how a character moved. It's at once beautiful, savory, complete, and exact. However, readers may complain that it's simply unnecessary verbiage. I'll give you an example:

I waited where I was, to ascertain whether his object was to come to close quarters and speak, on this occasion. To my surprise, he passed on rapidly, without saying a word, without even looking up in my face as he went by. This was such a complete inversion of the course of proceeding which I had every reason to expect on his part, that my curiosity, or rather my suspicion, was aroused, and I determined, on my side, to keep him cautiously in view, and to discover what the business might be on which he was now employed. (p. 503)

This could be easily rewritten as: I waited, but he passed me without a glance. His action surprised me, so I followed him to discover what his intentions were. If this was, in fact, how it was written, then the story would be 200 pages and selling as a cheap, mass-market paperback best read on a beach vacation. No, we read novels like The Woman in White first and foremost because of the writing--the convoluted but balanced thought, the investigation of intent from multiple sides, the uber-descriptive narrative that doesn't rest. If your thoughts tend to regurgitate and grind on situations that occur to you throughout the day, then you understand and enjoy this type of lilting writing that revisits a topic over and over again.

I find myself rereading with amazement and pleasure the skill of word and sentence placement. I think with a smirk what it'd be like today if we talked like this to each other: "Madame, may I question with all appropriate respect, &c, &c, if this book held betwixt my thumb and finger is, surely, the same novel as that penned by the indefatigable Wilkie Collins, esq., for if it is the veritable same, I intend with diligence, and without delay, at least delay on my part, not counting that which I may encounter on my ambulation home, to read immediately the book for which I inquire now, pray tell? Fantastic--not my writing--but the idea that we English speakers once talked like this, and could again if we read nothing but Victorian novels. I'd like to try a couple months with language like this around and about town today.

My favorite character, by a whimper, was Mr. Fairlie. What a pansy. But, written so humorously, each time he entered a scene my reaction was, "Oh geez, what ailment now." Mr. Hartwright was a sleuthing superstar, and since he predates Sherlock Holmes, I see a lot of similarity between the two, and can't help but wonder if Sir Arthur Conan Doyle based his character on Mr Hartwright. The team of Count Fosco and Percival Glyde were deeply written and their greed, bombast, and evil were delectable to the last. If anyone has read Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follet, tell me if I'm wrong to see a striking similarity between Follet's evil duo and Collins' team of Fosco and Glyde. Follet's portrayal of greed and evil fell flat, whereas Collins left you silently rooting for Fosco's escape. There's a few small problems with The Woman in White, but they're perfectly Victorian, yet personal peeves. For example, can a woman swoon from bad news and take months to recover? Can a person die from a broken heart? Small issues in a such a tightly woven story.

The Woman in White is a great mystery that kept me turning pages. I award 5 stars to less than 10% of the books I read, and Wilkie Collins' met that rarified degree. I liked the good characters, disliked the bad ones, and couldn't predict the ending until I got there; it's as simple as that.

Best lines about women:
1. Women can resist a man's love, a man's fame, a man's personal appearance, and a man's money; but they cannot resist a man's tongue, when he knows how to talk to them. Miriam's diary (p. 258)
2. "Human ingenuity, my friend, has hitherto only discovered two ways in which a man can manage a woman. One way is to knock her down--a method largely adopted by the brutal lower orders of the people, but utterly abhorrent to the refined and educated classes above them. The other way (much longer, much more difficult, but, in the end, not less certain) is never to accept a provocation at a woman's hands. It holds with animals, it holds with children, and it holds with women, who are nothing but children grown up." Evil Fosco (p.327)
3. "Where, in the history of the world, has a man of my order ever been found without a woman in the background, self-immolated on the altar of his life?" Evil Fosco (p. 629)

New words: frouzy, trumpery, glutinous

Beware of spoilers!

What I learned from this book (in no particular order) :

1.tItalians are excitable, dedicated to the opera, and most likely to be involved with organized crime.

2.tBeware of fat, jolly Italian counts with submissive wives and fondness of white mice and canaries.

3.tWatch out if your newly wed husband lives in a stately pile with an abandoned wing full of creepy Elizabethan furniture. If the said ancestral house is surrounded by dark ponds and eerie woods, expect the worst.

4.tA Baronet is not always noble, and his impressive manor and estate might be mortgaged to the hilt. Instead of being the lady of the house, you might be forced to pay HIS debts. Make sure that the marriage settlement is settled in your favor before marrying.

5.tNever marry for convenience or enter into any legal agreement when you are:
a. under age;
b. sentimental and easily persuadable;
c. prone to swooning and fainting.

6.tIntelligent, resourceful women are likely to be mannish, and even actually HAVE a mustache, but are strong and have good figures. They can also be relied on to provide intelligent conversation when your beautiful but fragile wives are too busy swooning.

7.tShutting yourself up in a medieval vestry full of combustible materials with a candle for lighting is NOT advisable. Always have your minions do the dirty work.

8.tBeing ‘feeble in mind’ is enough reason to get you committed into an asylum for the mentally ill. So is knowing some secret that you might accidentally blurt out to strangers.

9.tYou CAN marry someone who is legally dead. Nobody bothered to check the civil registry records in those good old days.

10.tA ménage a trois is fun, but you have to marry at least ONE of them first to preserve Victorian propriety.


Postscript

Lately, I have received several personal messages that accused me, based on point#1 in my review above, of being prejudiced toward Italians --- something which couldn't be further from the truth. For those who hold such view, I would like to point out that my review is a parody which involves humorous, satiric or ironic imitations of the plot, characters or point of views set forth in the novel.The "This is what I learned" heading is a part of the whole exercise, and does not mean that I personally subscribe to the points enumerated therein. Obviously, I don't believe that "intelligent, resourceful women are likely to be mannish, and even actually HAVE a mustache" (point 6) or that "being ‘feeble in mind’ is enough reason to get you committed into an asylum for the mentally ill" (point 8) --- just as I don't believe that "Italians are excitable, dedicated to the opera, and most likely to be involved with organized crime".

I'm aware that my sense of humor is not to everyone's taste, but it has never been my intention to denigrate Italians or any other ethnic groups in this review (or any other review of mine).

Laura Fairlie’s journal – June 6th, 1855

This morning in the garden I sketched a small flower and was overcome with exhaustion. I retired to my room, not before kissing my dearest darling Marian, and lay down upon my sofa for five hours. What a day! In the evening I played upon the piano, a quite difficult piece, which caused me to have to retire early and sleep for eighteen hours, once my maid Fannie undressed me and stroked my eyebrows. Usually Fannie from excess of sentimental attachment will gently rain down white rose petals upon my counterpaine as I fall asleep to infuse my dreams with sweetness. Alas she could not do that this evening as she was required to assist the scullery undermaid in clearing the waterpond of poisonous snails, so I slept but fitfully. Marian joined me as usual.

Laura Fairlie’s journal – June 7th.

A man smiled at me and I became very ill.

Marian Halcombe’s journal – June 8th.

As is universally understood, women are irrational creatures much given to frivolous whim and it is a situation earnestly to be desired that they be closely commanded by their menfolk, who at all times understand their best interests better than they themselves. I believe Sir Percival is trying to kill me, but that, as I have intimated, is his prerogative. I may mention that Sir Percival is the husband of my half-sister sweet kind innocent trusting pure lovely slenderwaisted Laura.
A man may beat a dog to tame it, and that is only just. Sometimes, I confess, I dare to think that a woman is better than a dog in the eyes of Our Maker.

The scullery undermaid has died from something, I know not what.

Marian Halcombe’s journal – June 9th.

It is the only joy left to me that I should be allowed each night to clasp to my bosom this divine creature my half sister Laura and sleep with her in my arms which can and on occasion does produce a cramp in both arms that will not dissipate all the following morning however vigorously I swing my limbs around. But I say a cheap price to pay for such infinitude of bliss. Today her husband shot both of Laura’s pet dachsunds, claiming an accident whilst cleaning his pistols. I am of a different opinion as I have detected that they were shot five and forty minutes apart. There can surely not have been two identical accidents whilst cleaning pistols on one morning. I simply cannot believe it. I believe Sir Percival wishes to shut us up in an asylum. As we look exactly like two existing patients in a private asylum in north London, this will probably happen on Tuesday of next week.

Marian Halcombe’s journal – July 11th

From my leafy vantage point I could see the clearly defined portly form of Count Fosco in the fallacious quivering moonlight. He had crept up to sweet kind innocent trusting pure lovely slenderwaisted Laura’s bedroom window and was engaged in spying upon her, for obscure motives. There he saw the young tender limbs of my own heavenly Laura clenching to her bedroom door frame as she leaned precariously out of her room in order best to overhear her lawful husband Sir Percival’s conversation, her husband in name only, who was, at that precise moment, in the very act of eavesdropping on me to discover how much I knew of his plan to kill me by means of an accident whilst cleaning his pistols.

Laura Fairlie’s journal – July 12th.

My husband addressed me in these terms :

"Many a fine brown egg must be destroyed to make one omelette!"
"Sir, what omelette is that? Make your meaning plain."
"What omelette, madam? Why, I – I am the omelette!"

Laura Fairlie’s journal – July 17th

Today I died.

The only real flaw in this densely plotted page-turner of a novel is that in the end it slightly disappoints because it promises more than it delivers. It makes the reader fall in love with its plain but resourceful heroine Marian Halcombe, and teases us with the delightful prospect that she will become the principal agent bringing the villains to justice. When, in the middle of the novel, Marian tells her half-sister Laura that "our endurance must end, and our resistance begin," it seems like a groundbreaking feminist principle, and a little later Collins gives us the perfect metaphor for liberation when Marian divests herself of much of her cumbersome Victorian clothing so that she may safely climb out on a roof to eavesdrop on her enemies.

But--alas!--she is soaked by the rain, becomes ill, and--after having been removed to the ancient Gothic wing of the estate to recuperate--she returns to the plain woman's typical Victorian role of loyal sister and adoring aunt, allowing the returning hero Walter Hartwright to tie up the loose ends of the plot. Nevertheless, the intricate resolution is absorbing (even if the last hundred pages seem too crowded and rushed) and the ending (although perhaps too pat) is satisfying.

Oh, I almost forgot to mention Count Fosco! He is--particularly in Marian's grudgingly admiring description--one of the most fascinating and dangerous villains of all mystery fiction.

The Woman in White is an extraordinary book. It captivated the reading public of the time, and in parts is almost as breathlessly mesmerising and gripping to read now. Wilkie Collins professed the “old-fashioned” idea, that “the primary object of a work of fiction should be to tell a story”, and what a story he has given us here!

Any list of “the greatest novels of all time” will probably feature this one. When it was first published, it wowed the reading public, and manufacturers got on the bandwagon, creating “Woman in White” perfume and “Woman in White” cloaks and bonnets. There were “Woman in White” waltzes and quadrilles displayed in music-shops. “Walter” became a fashionable name for babies, and the names of other characters in the novel became popular too. Cats were named “Fosco” and instantly looked more sinister in their owners’ eyes. The poet Edward FitzGerald even named his boat, “Marian Halcombe”. It can truly be said that this novel was a sensation.

It is quite apt then, that The Woman in White is generally regarded as the first of the Victorian “sensation” novels. Not only did it establish a new genre, arising from melodramatic novels, gothic and romantic novels, and drawing on “penny dreadfuls” and fictionalised criminal biographies, but it immediately gave rise to many imitators. No longer would gruesome and spectacular crimes only happen in fantastic Medieval castles, but behind the doors of ordinary domestic environments. Virtuous women would still be menaced by dastardly cads, but the element of realism was key. Mrs Henry Wood’s “East Lynne” was published the next year in 1861, and Mary Elizabeth Braddon’s “Lady Audley’s Secret”, the year after (1862). And to top all this, The Woman in White is also considered to be among the first mystery novels.

Yet in 1860, at the time of publication, Wilkie Collins was still very much in the shadow of Charles Dickens.

Back in April 1852, the twenty-seven year old Wilkie Collins had already turned his back on convention. His father wanted him to become a clergyman, but after some agonising, Wilkie Collins went a different way, and trained to become a barrister. He completed his legal studies and was called to the bar in 1851, but never formally practised, instead deciding to become a writer. Wilkie Collins then began writing for his friend Charles Dickens’s weekly magazine, “Household Words”. Dickens, then forty years of age, was by now a literary phenomenon, with his fingers in lots of pies. Although Dickens himself earned over a thousand pounds per annum from his work on the magazine, Wilkie Collins was initially paid by the column. Four years later, in September 1856, he finally became a staff writer who would be paid the standard rate of five guineas per week. But he was still one of many in Dickens’s “stable”.

For Victorian readers, to read a novel in serial form was the norm, and quite a few of these serials have since become classic novels. Other major Victorian writers who also had their novels printed in serial form first, in Dickens’s magazines “Household Words” and “All the Year Round”, include Elizabeth Gaskell and Anthony Trollope. In fact The Woman in White was the very first novel to be published in Charles Dickens’s brand new weekly magazine “All the Year Round”, between 1859 and 1860.

That very first weekly issue contained the concluding installment of Dickens’s “A Tale of Two Cities” followed immediately by the opening installment of a new novel with no author credited, a sensational “novel-with-a-secret”, which was called The Woman in White. Sales immediately increased! Holding back the author’s name may seem incredible to us now, but Charles Dickens was very strict that no authors in his magazines were ever named, so that he could keep them as his “staff writers”. Incidentally, a later issue during the run of The Woman in White, also has the start of “Framley Parsonage” and “East Lynne”. What a treasure trove these Victorian readers had in their magazines!

Yet just two months after serialisation had started, Dickens was calling The Woman in White “masterly”, and later, Prince Albert admired it so much that he sent copies of the novel as gifts. Charles Dickens began writing his own sensation novel just months later, called “Great Expectations”. Both novels are thrilling even now, with a strong story line, gothic feel and complex plot. Both dealt with secrets, past and present, questions and doubts about identity and social position. Both made use of the ideas of suspect wills, forged documents, inheritances, secret marriages, and illegitimacy; themes very much in flux in the changing society in the Victorian era.

What makes these novels so appealing to us now is that they are both exciting page-turners, with suspenseful mystery at their heart, and twists a-plenty. The Woman in White is a complex tale, with an unusual narrative structure. It is told by several narrators, and different forms, either as reported action, or diaries, or letters. In a way it resembles an epistolary novel, as each narrator has a distinct narrative voice. They form a chain of “witness” statements which gradually unravel a cunning conspiracy by  two memorable aristocratic monsters, Sir Percival Glyde and his despicable companion, one of the most seductive villains in Victorian literature, the Italian Count Fosco. Switching between the different and diverse viewpoints, adds interest and depth to the story. We begin to wonder who is to be trusted, and who might be an unreliable narrator. We also see how some characters are vague, or naive, others are driven and passionate, yet others again are vain, or dissembling.

Wilkie Collins is very much in the driving seat throughout this novel, carefully rationing out little pieces of the jigsaw, and disclosing the secret like a series of Russian dolls. He also manipulates our feelings, controlling who we think we trust. The entire novel is deviously plotted. The original structure was geared towards a “cliffhanger” at the end of each installment, leaving us wanting more. Oddly though, reading in the novel form we now have available, this is not as evident.

Dickens’s serialised installments could all be chopped up neatly into between three and five chapters, but that was impossible with The Woman in White. The narratives varied in length from one page to, surprisingly, two hundred. Some are divided into parts, and sometimes an installment contained parts of one and part of another. One narrator even returns later. The only choice was to have a completely new structure for the novel itself: in three Epochs rather than Parts, and chapters of similar lengths sweeping across the original divisions completely independently. The chapter names are also slightly different, for instance this magnificent original narrative title:

“The Narrative of Isidor Ottavio Baldassare Fosco. Count of the Holy Roman Empire. Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the Brazen Crown. Perpetual Archmaster of the Rosicrucian Masons of Mesopotamia. Attached, in Honorary Capacities, to Societies Musical, Societies Medical, Societies Philosophical, and Societies General Benevolent, Throughout Europe & & &”

has, disappointingly in the novel version, been reduced to merely:

“The Story Continued by Isidor, Ottavio, Baldassare, Fosco”

which hardly conjures up the enormous bombast and swagger of the character, whom I can imagine signing his name and illustrious titles with a satisfyingly sweeping flourish of his quill pen. These details so reminiscent of Dickens are sadly lost in most modern editions. Also, the suspense of the former endings of each installment are also lost, or rather subsumed into part of the action, but the whole flows just as well, and is just as addictive.

Wilkie Collins clearly understood people very well. He has created a wealth of wonderful characters. There is the faithful and angelic Laura Fairlie,  entrapped by  the sinister, secretive Percival Glyde; there is her impossible uncle, the effete connoisseur of the Arts, Frederick Fairlee, source of much of the humour in this book, with his monumental selfishness and exaggerated hypochondria. There is of course the wonderful Count Fosco, charismatic and cunning, with his cockatoo, his canary-birds, and his pet white mice, who run over his immense body, partnered by his overly dutiful, malevolently vindictive wife. There is at least one young protagonist for Wilkie Collins’s readers to identify with in Walter Hartright, a young man with a strong sense of justice. Another is the intelligent, and resourceful Marian Halcombe, one of his most powerful creations.

Some consider that with this mannish, eloquent character, Collins was attempting to create a positive portrayal of a lesbian woman, within the constraints of the time. This is possible, given Collins’s admiration of women, but it is all down to interpretation and subtext. Collins attacked middle-class hypocrisy, perhaps because he was himself so bohemian. Outwardly, he was a member of the Establishment. He belonged to the “Garrick Club” and to all outward appearances was a typical Victorian gentleman.

Wilkie Collins lived respectably enough with his mother for many years, whilst setting up his mistress, Caroline Graves, in a house nearby. But in 1858, defying public opinion, and much to Dickens’s disapproval, Collins began living with Caroline and her daughter Harriet. Charles Dickens too, was very much the family man in public. In fact although he and Collins both professed to be Christians, they had extraordinary lifestyles, and their views of marriage were very different from each other, for such close friends. Although we know of Dickens’s long-term relationship with Nelly Ternan, as a man of propriety, he had attempted to keep this a closely guarded secret.

Caroline kept a small shop nearby Collins’s home. She had married young, had a child, and been widowed. Wilkie Collins treated Harriet, whom he called Carrie, as his own daughter, and helped to pay for her education. The two stayed together for most of their lives although he refused to marry her as he disliked the institution of marriage. Extraordinarily for the time, Wilkie Collins also had another mistress, the working-class Martha Rudd, by whom he had three children, in a house just a few streets away.

The second installment of The Woman in White begins very melodramatically, to modern eyes, with a young man, Walter Hartright meeting a strange woman dressed all in white, in the mist. This dramatic meeting was rumoured to be how he first met Caroline Graves, on a night-time walk over Hampstead Heath. In The Woman in White Walter stops, every drop of blood in his body frozen still by “the touch of a hand laid lightly and suddenly” upon his shoulder. For us, for the first time, we meet the mysterious Anne Catherick, whom we know as The Woman in White.

But I shall not tell the story here. There are plenty of places where you can read a synopsis, should you want to, but wouldn’t that spoil all the twists?

After serialisation, The Woman in White was published in novel form in 1860, and also that year produced on stage, where it was a sensation. When serialised works from his magazines were published in novel form, or on stage, Dickens allowed the advertising to specifically name the authors of the novels. The poster, which was designed for booksellers’ windows for The Woman in White was a woodcut by Frederick Walker, and at last Wilkie Collins could have his name attributed to the novel.



The public loved The Woman in White, but contemporary critics were generally hostile. Now both critics and readers regard either this, or “The Moonstone” as his best novel, and it was certainly his own favourite. But at the time, he was very much viewed as an adjunct to Dickens, the two having collaborated on several articles and stories every year. 1857 had been a particularly fruitful year for the two, with the writing of three major works and the production of the play “The Frozen Deep”. Most recently Charles Dickens’s “The Haunted House” had included both authors, with Dickens’s stories framing stories by five others.

Interestingly, Dickens’s next novel was to be “Great Expectations”, the most gothic of all his novels. The two writers were clearly writing very closely together, and producing a very similar feel to their works. In fact reading parts of this, Dickens’s influence seems very clear at some points, especially in a few of the cameo roles. Wilkie Collins had a wry touch which was all his own, but some humorous passages jump out as being Charles Dickens’s irrepressible silliness. Also sometimes the sarcasm (for instance of Marian Halcombe) is very reminiscent of Dickens.

In 1862, the split finally came. Wilkie Collins resigned from Dickens’s staff, and the separation of Dickens’s and Collins’s identities as writers became more defined. Wilkie Collins was not to work with Dickens again until the pair collaborated on “No Thoroughfare” for the 1867 Christmas edition of the magazine. Immediately after this story came the first installment of “The Moonstone” in serial form, the novel that would finally establish Wilkie Collins’s reputation.

However he was in poor health. He continued to suffer from gout, and it now especially affected his eyes. Within a year, the laudanum he was taking for his continual gout became a serious problem.

Collins said of his early days with Dickens, “We saw each other every day, and were as fond of each other as men could be.” Wilkie Collins certainly suffered after the death of Charles Dickens in 1870. Some view Wilkie Collins as a draining influence on Charles Dickens, and it has even been suggested that the strain of mentoring Collins contributed to Dickens’s death. Perhaps the consequent loss of Dickens as both a friend and a literary mentor, partly caused Collins’s increased dependence upon laudanum. He certainly never bettered the novels he published in the 1860s.

Wilkie Collins’s later novels contained more social commentary, and were not as sensational. This one and “The Moonstone” represent the best, the most intriguing, and most enduring of his career. With their themes of jealousy, murder and adultery, these thrilling tales are as electrifying, horrific, suspenseful, and intricately plotted as any Victorian classics you are likely to read.

n  

"Why are we to stop her, sir? What has she done?"
"Done! She has escaped from my Asylum. Don't forget: a woman in white. Drive on."

n



I loved, loved, loved the first bits of the book!

Oh yeah, there will be SPOILERS so stop right there!

.
.
.

I loved Walter! I thought he was going to be in the whole book and that's where I started to get a might irritated. Anyhoo, so Walter gets a job instructing Miss Laura Fairlie and Miss Halcombe. I might mention that his employer, Mr. Fairlie, was a complete twat!

Oh well duh, on the road to his destination, Walter meets the woman in white. She's scared out of her wits but Walter does his best to calm her and they walk together.

We don't see much of the woman in white in the book. She puts in an appearance here and there.

So Walter gets to his place of employment where he is to live and teach the girls and other odd bits. And of course, he falls in love with the delicate Miss Fairlie. BUT. She is to be married to this twat named Sir Percival Glyde. Miss Halcombe tries to get her to end the engagement when they get an ominous letter from the woman in white warning about him. And then their solicitor is unhappy with the arrangement when said hubby to be refuses for Miss Fairlie's (Laura) money to be willed to Marian (Miss Halcombe) and friends. And her twat father doesn't care. I swear I wanted to smack the hell out of people. And alas, she marries the jerk! Are you serious right now? You know he's going to kill you honey if you don't sign it over.

In the meantime, Walter was sent away by Marian which sucked. Laura had fallen in love with him too but went on with the other marriage. She was an idiot too. But I liked how it turned out in the end so there!

So here we go with the ladies at Laura's new home with a couple of other twats hanging around. The count and his wife. They needed a bullet to the head too.

We have a few more scenes with the woman in white, some more people needed smacking, a death, Walter back in the picture to take care of the twats, take care of the ladies, another death and some babies

“This is the story of what a Woman's patience can endure, and what a Man's resolution can achieve.”

n  n

Walter Hartright, his name is a tip off regarding his character, is walking down the street, his mind absorbed with his own problems, when suddenly:

”In one moment, every drop of blood in my body was brought to a stop by the touch of a hand laid lightly and suddenly on my shoulder from behind me. I turned on the instant, with my fingers tightening round the handle of my stick. There, in the middle of the broad, bright high-road – there, as if it had that moment sprung out of the earth or dropped from the heaven – stood the figure of a solitary woman, dressed from head to foot in white garments, her face bent in grave inquiry on mine, her hand pointing to the dark cloud over London, as I faced her. I was far too seriously startled by the suddenness with which this extraordinary apparition stood before me, in the dead of night and in that lonely place, to ask what she wanted. The strange woman spoke first.

‘Is that the road to London?’”

A damsel in distress is irresistible to most men, but impossible to ignore for men of good character. Hartright is still reeling from her ghostly appearance out of the gloom and dark of night, made more dramatic by her pale apparel. Before he can assemble his thoughts, she is in a carriage being spirited away. Men appear quickly behind her, whom he soon learns are chasing her. Hartright makes every effort to catch up with her to offer her further assistance, but does not find her.

”She has escaped from my asylum.”

Hartright is left with a mystery, but will soon discover that this mystery will become an obsession as the woman in white proves inexplicably to be tied to the woman he will fall in love with. He takes a job as a drawing master, instructing two half sisters as different as night and day. One is fair, and one is dark. One is pretty, and one is...well...unattractive. The word ugly is actually used, but once I learn of Marian Halcombe’s character, it is impossible to associate such a hideous word to such a lovely person.

Marian is brave, brilliant, and resourceful. In my opinion, one of the most interesting and fascinating women to appear in a Victorian novel. She becomes the pillar of strength for her sister, as well as for Hartright, as they are inescapably bound together against the machinations of men intent upon their destruction. Marian, we soon learn, can hold her own. “Any woman who is sure of her own wits, is a match, at any time, for a man who is not sure of his own temper.”

Hartright, of course, falls in love with Laura Fairlie, the fair and beautiful one, an heiress, an orphan, a woman in need of protecting. Unfortunately, fate has conspired against them. She is promised to another one, the odious Sir Percival Glyde. Glyde is in serious financial trouble and needs her fortune to keep his creditors from dismantling his estate brick by brick. His closest friend is an Italian named Count Fosco, who conspires with him in a most insidious plot to take everything from Laura including, quite possibly, her own life.

n  n
Count “Never Missed a Meal” Fosco

I am a bit disappointed in Hartright. Laura is certainly in need of a white knight, but Marian would have been a woman to build a life with. He does love and respect Marian, but never sees her as a potential mate, even after he discovers that Laura will soon be unattainable. It is only a small disappointment. We all see ourselves from a very young age married to someone beautiful or handsome. Hartright, whose heart is always in the right place, is attracted to Laura’s beauty, but also to her vulnerability. Marian is neither pretty nor is she helpless.

The twist and turns to the plot are wonderfully revealed. This is considered one of the first detective novels as Hartright does apply investigative methods to his research while attempting to thwart the plans of Glyde and Fosco. Wilkie Collins’s background in studying the law also becomes readily apparent at different stages of the novel. The writing style is true Victorian style. I must caution you: if you are not a fan of Charles Dickens or Anthony Trollope, you might find this novel difficult.

I read the book mostly late at night with the fireplace crackling and popping next to me. The wind has been blowing steadily the last few days, and as it moved along the gutters and through the bushes outside my window, it created sounds that made me snuggle deeper into my reading chair and feel as much as possible as if I were in England in the 1850s.

Collins does explore the idea of women’s rights. The law does not protect their rights in near the same fashion that it protects a man’s rights. A woman truly had to live by her wits to keep from being marginalized by the complete and nearly unassailable power of her husband or her father. Marian was a match for any man, but she needed much more than her intelligence to outflank the injustice and the discrimination under which she was forced to live.

Collins was a bohemian who did not believe in marriage. He had no qualms about living with more than one lover at once. I’m sure Dickens marvelled at his ability to pull of this feat in such a conservative time period. They were good friends, Dickens and Collins, but there was a break in their friendship towards the end of Dickens’ life when he was working on the novel The Mystery of Edwin Drood, ”his last and unfinished novel, with its running and hostile allusion to Collins’ The Moonstone.” I can’t think that Dickens was jealous. He was the champion among writers at the time. Collins fell out of favor over time while Dickens’ books soared. Only recently has Collins started to be regarded as one of the important Victorian writers.

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The Dickens Family (and friends) in 1864 - (l-r)Charles Dickens, Jr., Kate Dickens, Charles Dickens, Miss Hogarth, Mary Dickens, Wilkie Collins, Georgina Hogarth

The Woman in White, as promised, does return to the plot, but you’ll have to read the book to discover exactly who she is, why she dresses in white, and what she has to do with the goings on at Limmeridge House? It is a chilling tale that must have elicited more than one gasp from the lips of Victorian women, young and old, as they discovered the truth behind the lies.

I must go now: “My hour for tea is half-past five, and my buttered toast waits for nobody.”

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"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).