The Woman in White
The Woman in White famously opens with Walter Hartright's eerie encounter on a moonlit London road. Engaged as a drawing master to the beautiful Laura Fairlie, Walter is drawn into the sinister intrigues of Sir Percival Glyde and his "charming" friend Count Fosco, who has a taste for white mice, vanilla bonbons and poison. Pursuing questions of identity and insanity along the paths and corridors of English country houses and the madhouse, The Woman in White is the first and most influential of the Victorian genre that combined Gothic horror with psychological realism. For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.
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Community Reviews
Who is the mysterious, young woman in white who suddenly touches the arm of Walter Hartright while walking alone at night in London? This question is at the root of this richly rewarding Victorian drama, considered the forerunner of the entire detective genre. Is the woman in white, who has admitted to escaping from an asylum, truly a lunatic, or is she a prisoner locked up for the dark secrets she knows about a powerful man?
The mystery of the woman's identity becomes completely entangled with the story of the engagement of young Laura Fairlie to Sir Percival Glyde, desperately in need of Laura's fortune. Laura's half-sister, Marian Halcolme, is a central character throughout the drama, suspecting Glyde's truly sinister character and desperately trying to prevent the ill-fated marriage. She also suspects a connection between the woman in white and her half-sister. So does Walter Hartright, who had been hired to teach both sisters the art of drawing and painting, and who fell in love with Laura right away. Marian and Walter form a close alliance in trying to solve the mystery of the woman in white and her possible connection to Laura and Sir Percival Glyde, while also trying to protect Laura from the efforts by Glyde and his Italian friend and advisor, Count Fosco, to separate Laura from her fortune.
You've got to enjoy the exceptionally long novels that were the style of this period, otherwise, you'll become impatient for faster movement. But in the mid-19th century, long novels were serialized in magazines, includng many of Charles Dickens' own novels. Dickens and Wilkie Collins were colleagues, fellow actors, and friends, and Dickens serialized The Woman in White as well as Moonstone in his magazine, All Year Round. Readers back in those days had plenty of patience to read long descriptions of persons, outfits, room furnishings, landscapes, and the menu at formal dinner parties.
One of Collins' innovations is in writing his novels from the perspectives of multiple characters. It is hugely enjoyable to get to know each character in depth in this way. Each writes from the heart and reveals more about themselves than even an omniscient narrator would have been able to do without it becoming awkward and overdone.
Note the Victorian literary device of giving characters names that suit them: Laura Fairlie is more than fairlie innocent and beautiful; Walter Hartright's heart is in the right place; Sir Percival Glyde relies on the evil machincations of his friend, Count Fosco, to glide through life at the expense of others.
I am indebted to a reviewer known as Jason for including these best lines about women from his own review, and I hope he takes it as a compliment that I borrow them here:
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. Marian'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)
The mystery of the woman's identity becomes completely entangled with the story of the engagement of young Laura Fairlie to Sir Percival Glyde, desperately in need of Laura's fortune. Laura's half-sister, Marian Halcolme, is a central character throughout the drama, suspecting Glyde's truly sinister character and desperately trying to prevent the ill-fated marriage. She also suspects a connection between the woman in white and her half-sister. So does Walter Hartright, who had been hired to teach both sisters the art of drawing and painting, and who fell in love with Laura right away. Marian and Walter form a close alliance in trying to solve the mystery of the woman in white and her possible connection to Laura and Sir Percival Glyde, while also trying to protect Laura from the efforts by Glyde and his Italian friend and advisor, Count Fosco, to separate Laura from her fortune.
You've got to enjoy the exceptionally long novels that were the style of this period, otherwise, you'll become impatient for faster movement. But in the mid-19th century, long novels were serialized in magazines, includng many of Charles Dickens' own novels. Dickens and Wilkie Collins were colleagues, fellow actors, and friends, and Dickens serialized The Woman in White as well as Moonstone in his magazine, All Year Round. Readers back in those days had plenty of patience to read long descriptions of persons, outfits, room furnishings, landscapes, and the menu at formal dinner parties.
One of Collins' innovations is in writing his novels from the perspectives of multiple characters. It is hugely enjoyable to get to know each character in depth in this way. Each writes from the heart and reveals more about themselves than even an omniscient narrator would have been able to do without it becoming awkward and overdone.
Note the Victorian literary device of giving characters names that suit them: Laura Fairlie is more than fairlie innocent and beautiful; Walter Hartright's heart is in the right place; Sir Percival Glyde relies on the evil machincations of his friend, Count Fosco, to glide through life at the expense of others.
I am indebted to a reviewer known as Jason for including these best lines about women from his own review, and I hope he takes it as a compliment that I borrow them here:
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. Marian'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)
Listed as the best book you've never heard of and it's true! Published in the 1859, this is a classic that isn't as known (but should be). I've been talking this up to all my bookish friends and I've not come across one who has heard of it. This, my friends, is the basis of detective fiction novels. Doyle based his character and stories on this novel. It was initially published as a serial so essentially each chapter ends as a cliffhanger and just keeps forcing you to read and curse anything that tries to distract you.
I listened to this through Craftlit, because Heather does a great job with explanations (she's a teacher). But you can also grab it for free from Librivox.
Walter Hartright is a young artist who gets a job at Limmeridge House to teach and mentor two young ladies in drawing, Laura Fairlie, a beautiful wealthy blonde, and Marian Halcombe, Laura's half-sister, most noted to be not as attractive but turns out to be one of the best written female characters.
On the way to Limmeridge, Walter encounters the woman in white. She's lost and needs assistance to get to where she needs to go. After assisting her, Walter finds out that she's escaped from a mental asylum. He uses the experience as a tale to tell the young ladies and finds out that the woman in white is actually Anne Catherick, who knew Laura's mother.
As expected, Walter falls for Laura but Laura is promised to Sir Percival Glyde in marriage. Glyde's best bud, Count Fosco, married to Laura's aunt, completes the crew that we end up watching throughout the book.
The book is told in narratives, each voiced by a different character. We start off with Walter's POV and then jump into others. This allows us to get a full picture of the mystery and how it started and where it went. But.....it's hard to tell, when the story is laid out, which narrator can be trusted. (Walter is a bit boring at first, but stick with him.)
Every time I was able to turn this book on, I was engrossed. If you are unsure about "the classics", start here!
I listened to this through Craftlit, because Heather does a great job with explanations (she's a teacher). But you can also grab it for free from Librivox.
Walter Hartright is a young artist who gets a job at Limmeridge House to teach and mentor two young ladies in drawing, Laura Fairlie, a beautiful wealthy blonde, and Marian Halcombe, Laura's half-sister, most noted to be not as attractive but turns out to be one of the best written female characters.
On the way to Limmeridge, Walter encounters the woman in white. She's lost and needs assistance to get to where she needs to go. After assisting her, Walter finds out that she's escaped from a mental asylum. He uses the experience as a tale to tell the young ladies and finds out that the woman in white is actually Anne Catherick, who knew Laura's mother.
As expected, Walter falls for Laura but Laura is promised to Sir Percival Glyde in marriage. Glyde's best bud, Count Fosco, married to Laura's aunt, completes the crew that we end up watching throughout the book.
The book is told in narratives, each voiced by a different character. We start off with Walter's POV and then jump into others. This allows us to get a full picture of the mystery and how it started and where it went. But.....it's hard to tell, when the story is laid out, which narrator can be trusted. (Walter is a bit boring at first, but stick with him.)
Every time I was able to turn this book on, I was engrossed. If you are unsure about "the classics", start here!
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