Wilkie Collins, Rachel Lay
The Woman in White
eBook
( April 18, 2014)
• The book includes 10 unique illustrations that are relevant to its content.
The Woman in White is an epistolary novel written by Wilkie Collins in 1859, serialized in 1859–1860, and first published in book form in 1860. It is considered to be among the first mystery novels and is widely regarded as one of the first (and finest) in the genre of 'sensation novels'. The story is considered an early example of detective fiction with the hero, Walter Hartright, employing many of the sleuthing techniques of later private detectives. The use of multiple narratives draws on Collins's legal training and 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'.Walter Hartright, a young drawing master, is walking from Hampstead to London. On this he meets a mysterious woman dressed in white, apparently in deep distress. He helps her on her way to London but later learns that she has escaped from an asylum. The next day he travels north to Limmeridge House, on a commission of being drawing master to residents of the house, previously gained by his devoted friend, an Italian language professor named Pesca. The household comprises Mr Frederick Fairlie, and Walter's students: Laura Fairlie, Mr Fairlie's niece, and Marian Halcombe, her devoted half-sister. Hartright finds that Laura bears an astonishing resemblance to the woman in white, called Anne Catherick. The mentally disadvantaged Anne had lived for a time in Cumberland as a child and was devoted to Laura's mother, who first dressed her in white.
The Woman in White is an epistolary novel written by Wilkie Collins in 1859, serialized in 1859–1860, and first published in book form in 1860. It is considered to be among the first mystery novels and is widely regarded as one of the first (and finest) in the genre of 'sensation novels'. The story is considered an early example of detective fiction with the hero, Walter Hartright, employing many of the sleuthing techniques of later private detectives. The use of multiple narratives draws on Collins's legal training and 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'.Walter Hartright, a young drawing master, is walking from Hampstead to London. On this he meets a mysterious woman dressed in white, apparently in deep distress. He helps her on her way to London but later learns that she has escaped from an asylum. The next day he travels north to Limmeridge House, on a commission of being drawing master to residents of the house, previously gained by his devoted friend, an Italian language professor named Pesca. The household comprises Mr Frederick Fairlie, and Walter's students: Laura Fairlie, Mr Fairlie's niece, and Marian Halcombe, her devoted half-sister. Hartright finds that Laura bears an astonishing resemblance to the woman in white, called Anne Catherick. The mentally disadvantaged Anne had lived for a time in Cumberland as a child and was devoted to Laura's mother, who first dressed her in white.
- Pages
- 576