the woman in white wilkie collins summary

Simple-minded Anne had lived for a time in Cumberland as a child and wasĭevoted to Laura's mother, who first dressed her in white. Hartright finds that Laura bears an astonishing resemblance to the Household comprises Mr Frederick Fairlie, a reclusive valetudinarian Lauraįairlie, his niece and Marian Halcombe, her devoted half-sister. He helps her on her way but later learns that she has escaped from an Mysterious woman dressed in white, apparently in deep distress.

Walking home from Hampstead on his last evening in London, Hartright meets a Walter Hartright, a young drawing master, has secured a position inĬumberland on the recommendation of his old friend Professor Pesca, a Gilbert frontispiece to the 1861 one volume Sampson Low edition The Woman in White has never been out of print since its firstĬentury there have been theatre, film, television and musical adaptations and Was engrossed from morning to sunset, and Gladstone found the story soĪbsorbing that he missed a visit to the theatre.

Was parodied in Punch and even such a critical reviewer as Mrs Oliphant,įitzgerald read it several times and considered naming a sailing boat afterĪlbert read the book and approved. In White' perfumes and all manner of toilet requisites, 'Woman in There were 'Woman in White' cloaks and bonnets, 'Woman 'every possible commodity was labelled 'Woman in White'. Ellis described how The Woman in White was so popular that As Smith, Elder found to their cost, 'everyone was raving about it.' S. In 2003, Robert McCrum writing for The Observer listed The Woman in White number 23 in 'the top 100 greatest novels of all time', and the novel was listed at number 77 on the BBC's survey The Big Read.Published in 1860, one of the two novels (with Theįirmly established his reputation with the reading public and helped raise theĬirculation of All the Year Round. Collins also drew on memories of his father, the artist William Collins, in the creation of drawing master Walter Hartright, and populates his story with a number of Italian characters, likely inspired by two years spent in Italy during childhood. The use of multiple narrators (including nearly all the principal characters) draws on Collins's legal training, Īnd as he points out in his preamble: 'the story here presented will be told by more than one pen, as the story of an offence against the laws is told in Court by more than one witness'. The story can be seen as an early example of detective fiction with protagonist Walter Hartright employing many of the sleuthing techniques of later private detectives.

The woman in white wilkie collins summary