The Woman in White: Color Illustrated, Formatted for E-Readers

How is this book unique?

Formatted for E-Readers, Unabridged & Original version. You will find it much more comfortable to read on your device/app. Easy on your eyes.

Includes: 15 Colored Illustrations and Biography

The Woman in White is Wilkie Collins' fifth published novel, written in 1859. 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 sometimes 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 narrators 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". 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.
Walter Hartright, a young art teacher, meets a mysterious and distressed woman dressed in white. He helps her on her way, but later learns that she has escaped from an asylum. Next day, he travels to Limmeridge House in Cumberland, having been hired as a drawing master on the recommendation of his friend, Pesca, an Italian language master. The Limmeridge household comprises the invalid Frederick Fairlie, and Walter's students: Laura Fairlie, Mr Fairlie's niece, and Marian Halcombe, her devoted half-sister. Walter realises that Laura bears an astonishing resemblance to the woman in white, who is known to the household and whose name is Anne Catherick. The mentally disabled Anne had lived near Limmeridge as a child and was devoted to Laura's mother, who first dressed her in white.

While Marian is ill, Laura is tricked into travelling to London. Her identity and Anne's are then switched. Anne Catherick dies naturally and is buried as Laura; Laura is drugged and "returned" to the asylum as Anne. When Marian visits the asylum, hoping to learn something from Anne, she finds Laura, supposedly suffering from the "delusion" that she is Lady Glyde. Marian bribes the nurse and Laura escapes. Walter has meanwhile returned from Honduras, and the three live together in obscure poverty, determined to restore Laura's identity. During his researches, Walter discovers that Glyde was illegitimate, and therefore not entitled to inherit his title or property. He has attempted to cover this up by forging an entry in the marriage register, a serious criminal offence. Believing Walter either has discovered or will discover his secret, Glyde attempts to destroy the register entry, but in the process sets the church vestry on fire and perishes in the flames. Confronting Anne's mother, Walter discovers that Anne was the illegitimate child of Laura's father, which accounts for their resemblance. Walter suspects that Anne died before Laura's trip to London (in which case the plot would fail) but is unable to prove the date of Laura's journey. However on a visit to the Opera with Pesca, it becomes clear that Fosco belongs to (and has betrayed) an Italian secret society of which Pesca is a high-ranking member who could order his assassination for the betrayal. Fosco seeks to flee the country, but Walter confronts him – having first taken precautions against Fosco's killing him – and forces a written confession from Fosco, in exchange for letting him leave England unhindered. Laura's identity can thus be legally restored. Fosco escapes, only to be killed by another agent of the secret society in Paris. Walter and Laura have married earlier, and on the death of Frederick Fairlie, their son becomes the Heir of Limmeridge.