The Woman in White is my first novel by Wilkie Collins and I found it a very gripping read, it took me less than two weeks to finish this brick of a book. It's quite an intriguing mystery and I think that it stikes a good enough balance between melodrama and moderate plausibility. I enjoyed the big cast of characters but I agree with some other reviews saying that Laura paled compared to her sister Marian in terms of personality and depth (even if poor Marian was depicted in a very unfavourable way).

I have to admit that the chapters set at Blackwater Park were a bit difficult to go through, given all the misery and abuse directed at the female characters, it made for a very bleak reading experience. However, the story was wrapped up neatly and in a satisfying way.

I wasn't expecting the vicious fatphobia that permeates the entire novel so I was quite taken aback and it really dampened my overall enjoyment.  

If you fancy GOTHIC tropes and atmosphere this definitely delivers!

I loved Mariane Halcombe and how Collins creates cinematic scenes, describing the fall of light and casting of shadows. He pays great attention to subtleties of character's expressions during dialogue. I was also surprised at times by the nuanced manner in which Collins depicted women's experiences, sisterhood, relationships and interactions with men that appeared in Mariane's passages. That said, Walter's place in the narrative as a white knight in shining armour spoilt the feminist potential of the story. The morality was also dubious. Also, I would say that the fatphobia throughout is pretty extreme. The representation of Italians was offensive but interesting as a snapshot of tolerant vs intolerant attitudes at the time.

I listened along to the audiobook as I read my paperback too which I can recommend. I was hooked! This was a pleasure to read and didn't feel at all like 600 pages.

A domestic thriller garnished with Victorian misogyny. My compliments to the multi perspective storytelling through letters and diary entries, etc.

These poor women really were in a hell of societal convention. Not allowed to do anything without a disinterested uncle's consent. Not allowed to talk to each other plainly. Forced to walk on eggshells and hypervigilant to even the merest shadow of an insult. If only they could call everyone's BS and just LEAVE.

Like, at first I thought Marian was being paranoid. But no, Count Fosco and his wife really were sneaky little snakes. (Tho, the stubborn disgust at Fosco's praise was odd to me. Like, kinda a black and white moral superiority complex thing. As if because Fosco did some sketchy stuff, his very gaze could poison her or something.) (Oh, also, Fosco's condemnation of English society and crime was kinda weird. Was the author speaking through him as a form of social critique, or was the author trying to frame that line of thinking as obviously wrong because a villain was voicing it?)

In other news, the mystery threaded throughout, Percival Glyde's big secret, was v interesting.

Funny to me that this novel came out right after A Tale of Two Cities and both of them contain "twin" characters.

Anyway, I liked it. Not a top favorite, but worth the read.

 

TITLE—The Woman in White 

AUTHOR—Wilkie Collins 

PUBLISHED—1860 

 

GENRE—gothic literature; “sensation novel”; epistolary format in multiple POVs 

SETTING—Victorian era England 

MAIN THEMES/SUBJECTS—mental illness, lunacy & institutionalization; misogyny & Patriarchal oppression & manipulation; Romanticism; female agency; oneiromancy (dream prophecy/divination); epistolary format; commentary on human nature 

 

WRITING STYLE—⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ 

CHARACTERS—⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ 

STORY/PLOT—⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ 

BONUS ELEMENT/S—Reading this parallel to John Harwood’s The Seance was a stroke of excellent luck! Highly recommend! 

PHILOSOPHY—⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ 

 

 

Whew this is a long one, but quite readable! Once I got the hang of the Victorian writing style (which isn’t my usual thing) I enjoyed the book immensely and couldn’t put it down. There is something about Collins’s writing style that is a little humorous, almost tongue-in-cheek feeling in spite of the heavy, tense topics and plot. 

 

I loved the political undertones of the writing and his characters were phenomenal: incredibly unique and visceral representations of truly complex people who are at once very realistic and relatable and also a bit unusual and in some cases a bit larger-than-life seeming. Marian Halcombe was an easy favorite but Walter Hartright was also very lovable and Fosco and Mr. Fairlie were just entertaining AF—oh and Mrs. Catherick! Usually when secondary characters—especially villains—like that “have their say” in epistolary narratives or multiple POV narratives I get a little bored with the story but Fosco’s, Mr. Fairlie’s, and Mrs. Catherick’s POVs ended up being some of my favorite parts of the book. They are also the characters that seemed a bit larger than life—flamboyant, but without the modern connotations of that word. 😅 (I actually read that the character Fosco from this book was the source of Oscar Wilde’s Oxford days nickname as well. 😂 Love that. ❤️) 

 

<SPOILER>I also loved how the build up to the climaxes and endings belied the reality of what the actual situation of the story was, though hidden from the reader (and the characters, mostly). It was such a trip of the imagination to speculate about Percival’s “Secret” and the reason behind Mrs. Catherick’s complicity and Anne’s fate etc. etc. and then when all is revealed it’s as though Collins is saying: What? These are humans. What did you expect? As chaotic as the events in the narrative are and how often they bordered on the extreme—indeed, even the supernatural at times?—in the end it was all down to just very much the simple reality of human nature.</SPOILER> 

 

Honestly I’m still kind of surprised this book was written by a Victorian English cishet man. Obviously a very liberal-minded man as any bestie of Dickens is likely to be but wow. He depicted the true horror of the Patriarchy in a way that I just wouldn’t have guessed a man of that era would have truly seen let alone understood. Props, my dude. 

 

Overall a really satisfying read both in terms of the story, the characters, the philosophy, and the deeper commentaries on human nature. 

 

 

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ 

 

TW // graphic, upsetting dog death; all the usual sort of offensive content in English classic literature: fatphobia, misogyny, gaslighting, xenophobia, racism, classism (Please feel free to DM me for more specifics!) 

 

Further Reading—