The Woman in White

First published in serial form in 1859–60 and issued as a book in 1860, Wilkie Collins’s The Woman in White begins with a mysterious encounter on a London road, where drawing master Walter Hartright meets a distressed woman dressed entirely in white. His subsequent employment at Limmeridge House brings him into the lives of Laura Fairlie and her half-sister Marian Halcombe, drawing him into a web of concealed identities, suspicious marriages and calculated deception. As the mystery deepens, the characters confront a system in which wealth, reputation and legal authority can be turned against the vulnerable.

One of the great sensation novels of the Victorian age, The Woman in White unfolds through multiple narrators whose testimonies gradually assemble a complex and unsettling truth. Collins combines Gothic atmosphere with the machinery of detective fiction, using documents, letters and conflicting accounts to keep the reader continually revising their understanding. His treatment of marriage, property and women’s legal dependence lends the suspense a sharp social dimension. Influential in the development of the modern mystery novel, it remains a richly plotted exploration of how easily appearances can conceal injustice.

From the book

“This is the story of what a Woman’s patience can endure, and what a Man’s resolution can achieve.”

— Wilkie Collins, The Woman in White

On The Woman in White

“A vortex of crime, poison, kidnapping, and international intrigue.”

— Tufts University, English Gothic Fiction research guide