The Woman in White

I had seen the movie many years ago, but I somehow missed the ending. Rather than order the movie, I decided to read the book, as a couple of the reviewers had suggested, and I was not disappointed. It's great! The twists and turns will keep you guessing and wondering if you're right in your conclusions. I couldn't put it down!

This book was described by the famed film writer and author of dozens of books and stories, Nora Ephron, as the very first mystery-thriller. It was written circa 1850. Don't be put off. The skillful writing, complex plot and stunningly believable characters combine in a book that not only holds up well after more than a hundred and fifty years, but is a pleasure to read. My only complaint is that it is too long. Today's readers, including myself (I am an author of mystery-thrillers) want a quicker, tighter read. For the reader who wants to live in another world, charmed and captivated, this is the perfect book.

Lofty language and well-crafted plot and characters kept me engrossed as I plowed through this English Lit classic. I was happy I had the use of the embedded dictionary as there was much formal and obscure verbiage which I enjoyed immensely. The whole time I was reading this, I imagined the way it would be played out on the screen. Such a great movie script! I'm sure it's been done, so now ill look for it.

When I started to read this book, I didn't think I would like it or finish it. The writing was so odd and peculiar to me. The story is so convoluted that I couldn't put it down. The characters are complex and interesting. It was so easy to dislike some, and wonder how a writer could convey such emotion in most of the interaction between good and evil, greed and love. This is not a fast read,butq I enjoyed every page. This is also a book I will read again.

The plot line was brilliant. I liked the character development. But it could easily have been shaved down by a third. There were also a few editing errors.

This book, along with Collins' other famous novel, "The Moonstone", has been recommended to me at times by reader friends and teachers who know how much I love English literature and mystery novels. It's supposed to be a seminal classic, one of the first mystery-romance-Gothic, a prototype for the genre. It was wildly popular when it was published in 1860. So when my mystery book club chose read it I did. Gentle reader, it's very very long, so be prepared. A young drawing teacher is stopped for directions as he travels to London on a dark night by a woman in white who places a hand on his shoulder, evidently coming up behind him. I'm afraid I got bogged down here right away. What woman would do this in 1860? What woman would be walking to London alone today? Onward. A long and convoluted narrative begins, involving two mysterious women in white, insanity, their mother, a cometery, the drawing instructor, a fortune, an evil friend and a dead father. The father insists the woman marry a friend of his, which she doesn't want to do but does because she feels she has a moral obligation. Lots of back and forth about class structure, the place of women, what's proper, temptation resisted.I was reminded of "Clarissa", written in 1748 by Samuel Richardson. It too, was scandalous and wildly popular. It’s discussed in Leslie Fiedler's famous book of literary criticism, "Love and Death in the American Novel", a must read in 1960. Clarissa Harlowe is seduced by the evil Lovelace, somehow against her will, and ruined. I got really exasperated with both Clarissa and the characters in TWIW because of their endless sensitivities, worries, mulling over and over about what to do. I wasn't surprised when I found out that Henry James thought that Collins had cloned "Clarissa". "...Margaret Oliphant hailed it as "a new beginning in fiction", while at the same time Edward Bulwer-Lytton dismissed it as "great trash". And while Henry James disliked the "ponderosity" of The Woman in White (calling it "a kind of 19th-century version of Clarissa Harlowe"), he acknowledged that the book had "introduced into fiction those most mysterious of mysteries, the mysteries which are at our own doors". (The Manchester Guardian review).Sometimes it seems to me that the English novel really has but one theme, the problem of patriarchy, and the plight of women and the evil sins committed against them. Think of Thomas Hardy. Think of the insane women in English literature (Virginia Woolf, T.S. Eliot's wife), Rebecca, Jane Eyre.“Above all, perhaps, “The Woman in White” shows how unusually attuned Collins was to the vulnerability of women in Victorian society and the ease with which they could be tumbled from their place. Only a couple of years earlier, Bulwer-Lytton had had his own fractious wife committed to an asylum.” - The New YorkerSo, I think I've made my case that "The Woman in White" deserves to be read, and needs to be on any serious reader's completed list. It's elegantly and beautifully written, filled with sensuous and vivid imagery. I gave myself over to the languid pace, but still was sustained by suspense as I read on and on.

I really enjoyed how the author wrote this book! So many twists and turns throughout these pages!!! I cannot say that I disliked any particular thing about the novel.

If you enjoy period pieces and well-written mysteries, you will love this book!! The author has told the story in a unique format, which will keep you intrigued until the end!!

Once you get used to the long sentences, and the excellent use of words seldom heard today, you're constantly getting a first class English lesson from a story book very well hard to put down....

Decades ahead of its time, this is one book that defines suspense, thrill, adventure, intrigue and danger. A classic that stands out as one of the most remarkable pieces of literature ever written. Hats off to Willkie Collins for this masterpiece.

The format was so poor that I gave up the book. I find it unreadable when every end-of-line in a scanned original results in a forced return in the digital version.

First half is hard to put down, last half less so but still good read. Long but did not seem too long.