The Woman in White
The Woman in White famously opens with Walter Hartright's eerie encounter on a moonlit London road. Engaged as a drawing master to the beautiful Laura Fairlie, Walter is drawn into the sinister intrigues of Sir Percival Glyde and his 'charming' friend Count Fosco, who has a taste for white mice, vanilla bonbons and poison. Pursuing questions of identity and insanity along the paths and corridors of English country houses and the madhouse, The Woman in White is the first and most influential of the Victorian genre that combined Gothic horror with psychological realism.
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What you might want to know about The Woman in White
The questions readers send us most often, answered without spoilers.
On a moonlit road north of London, young drawing master Walter Hartright meets a frightened woman dressed all in white.
The Woman in White was written by Wilkie Collins and published in 1859. It is widely cited as one of the first English-language detective novels and a foundational work of sensation fiction.
Yes. The Woman in White was published in 1859 and is in the public domain. Free editions are available legally through Project Gutenberg.
The Woman in White is 544 pages in standard print editions, though page counts vary slightly between hardcover, paperback, and large-print formats.
At an average reading pace of about 250 words per minute, The Woman in White takes most readers 8 to 12 hours to finish.
The Woman in White is a standalone novel by an unknown author, not part of a series.
The Woman in White is available in hardcover, paperback, ebook, and audiobook formats from Amazon, Bookshop.org, ThriftBooks, and most major bookstores.