Book Review: The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins

I got this book for free.
Arti­cle first pub­lished as Book Review: The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins on Blog­crit­ics

My rat­ing for The Woman in White — 4

About:
“The Woman in White” by Wilkie Collins was pub­lished as a news­pa­per ser­ial in 1859. In 1860 a col­lected edi­tion of the chap­ters was pub­lished in book form. The fic­tional story is con­sid­ered to be one of the first mys­tery nov­els, as well as one of the finest.

How fine you ask? Buy “The Woman in White” and find out

Thoughts:
Even though this is a Vic­to­rian novel, it is still grip­ping, engag­ing and a page turner. The char­ac­ters cre­ated by Collins are three dimen­sional, vivid, intel­li­gent, thought pro­vok­ing and some­times hilar­i­ous even by today’s stan­dards. The story is not told in a straight nar­ra­tive form, but rather in a series of let­ters, first hand accounts, diaries and dis­po­si­tions by the main char­ac­ters, as well as some sup­port­ing characters.

Since this novel was first seri­al­ized, every chap­ter ends with a twist to keep the read­ers com­ing back, that is not to say that there aren’t many twists in the chap­ters them­selves. As a detec­tive novel, the nar­ra­tive is faith­ful to the art of inves­ti­ga­tion. Wal­ter Har­tright, the one who is doing the inves­ti­ga­tion, doesn’t only talk to wit­nesses, but also minor char­ac­ters who can give him back­ground on those he is investigating.

How­ever, “The Woman in White” is not a only a mys­tery but also a Gothic romance where a man and woman give up almost every­thing to be together. The author moves the story pre­cisely, grace­fully and with won­der­ful prose and a nar­ra­tive style which reminded me of Charles Dick­ens. The plot is com­plex, twisted engag­ing yet real­is­tic and easy to digest.

One of the most won­der­ful things about this book is the fan­tas­tic sup­port­ing cast. Count Fosco, the main vil­lain, is a Vic­to­rian Tony Soprano, with the same charm, body type and vil­lain­ous and cun­ning ini­tia­tives. Fred­er­ick Fair­lie, an effem­i­nate hypochon­driac, had me laugh­ing out loud, as well as the first sev­eral appear­ances of the Ital­ian Pro­fes­sor Pesca.

Syn­op­sis:
Wal­ter Har­tright, a draw­ing teacher, is hired to teach the beau­ti­ful Laura Fair­lie and her half-sister Mar­ian Hal­combe. Laura is a weak crea­ture, heir to the fam­ily for­tune while Mar­ian is a strong minded indi­vid­ual. Soon Wal­ter and Laura fall in love, how­ever Laura has already promised Sir Per­ci­val her hand in mar­riage. Soon it becomes clear that Sir Per­ci­val has money prob­lems and has his eye on Laura’s money. Not a man of honor, Sir Per­ci­val and his friend, Count Fosco, plan to get their hands on the trea­sure pot.

When Wal­ter and Mar­ian real­ize that Laura’s life is in dan­ger, the two uncover the das­tardly scheme in an attempt to res­cue the young bride. Through­out the book, a mys­te­ri­ous lady in white wan­ders in and out of the story, lonely, dejected and des­per­ate to meet with Laura.

A book which was never out of print must be good

Buy it here before… it goes into print again

Zohar — Man of laBook

Related arti­cles

• Talk­ing About Detec­tive Fic­tion by PD James — review (guardian.co.uk)
• Ten of the best pro­fes­sors in lit­er­a­ture (guardian.co.uk)
• Ten of the best wicked uncles in lit­er­a­ture (guardian.co.uk)

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