The Woman in White (Dover Giant Thrift Editions) - Softcover

Wilkie Collins

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0486440966 ISBN 13: 9780486440965

Publisher: Dover Publications, 2005

Synopsis

Mistaken identities, locked rooms, madness, and romance—these are a few of the ingredients the author (one of the most successful and popular Victorian writers) used to inspire "the 'creepy' effect, as of pounded ice dropped down the back," that, according to one of his friends, was Wilkie Collins's aim in writing The Woman in White. Popularly regarded as one of the author's finest works, and widely copied by other writers, this thriller was the prototype for a whole new genre of fiction: the "sensation novel."
A scheming nobleman, a beautiful heiress, and, of course, the enigmatic woman in white—a mysterious figure confined to an asylum for the insane—are the featured players in an intricate, compelling story that was acclaimed by Henry James and T. S. Eliot. An instant success when it first appeared in 1860, the riveting tale has continued to enthrall readers ever since.

About this title

From the Publisher

"There in the middle of the broad, bright high-road-there, as if it had that moment sprung out of the earth or dropped from the heaven-stood the figure of a solitary woman, dressed from head to foot in white garments." Thus young Walter Hartright first meets the mysterious woman in white in what soon became one of the most popular novels of the nineteenth century. Secrets, mistaken identities, surprise revelations, amnesia, locked rooms and locked asylums, and an unorthodox villain made this mystery thriller an instant success when it first appeared in 1860, and it has continued to enthrall readers ever since. From the hero's foreboding before his arrival at Limmeridge House to the nefarious plot concerning the beautiful Laura, the breathtaking tension of Collin's narrative created a new literary genre of suspense fiction, which profoundly shaped the course of English popular writing. Collins other great mystery, The Moonstone, has been called the finest detective story ever written, but it was this work that so gripped the imagination of the world that Wilkie Collins had his own tombstone inscribed: "Author of The Woman In White. . . "

From the Back Cover

As the inscription on his tombstone reveals, Wilkie Collins wanted to be remembered as the "author of The Woman in White," for it was this novel that secured his reputation during his lifetime. The novel begins with a drawing teacher's eerie late-night encounter with a mysterious woman in white, and then follows his love for Laura Fairlie, a young woman who is falsely incarcerated in an asylum by her husband, Sir Percival Glyde, and his sinister accomplice, Count Fosco. This edition returns to the original text that galvanized England when it was published in serial form in All the Year Round magazine in 1860. Three different prefaces Collins wrote for the novel, as well as two of his essays on the book's composition, are reprinted, along with nine illustrations. The appendices include contemporary reviews, along with essays on lunacy, asylums, mesmerism, and the rights of women.

About this edition

• Publisher: Dover Publications
• Publication date: 2005
• ISBN 10: 0486440966
• ISBN 13: 9780486440965
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 528