Customer Reviews:
 Excellent October 11, 2007
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
I simply cannot heap enough praise on this book. I must have recommended it to dozens of people over the years, and all of them came back begging for more of the same. When it comes to mystery stories that'll give you goosebumps all over even at the height of summer Wilkie Collins is second to none.
It's expertly written, with different characters as narrators for each chapter, and Collins is a master at creating suspense. Enjoy!
Don't be put off by the thickness................ April 17, 2007
3 out of 4 found this review helpful
Never Mind the thickness feel the quality!
Never have I been more put off by a title or a books length that that of the `Women in White', and never have been more wrong to judge a book by its title and its length. Books half the length of the Women in White have felt twice as long in the reading.
The barriers in English I expected to encounter from a Classic novel, were just not there. The narrative flows easily, it is very contemporary, and carries you with it, it feels an easy read and it is. The page counting I expected, I did not encounter; I wanted more not less.
The narrative from the cast, each seeing the unfolding events from a slightly varying perspective I liked. Repetition will always play a part this approach but here it does not detract from the story, it just adds another layer and adds further suspense.
The technique is well used, in Brink's, a Chain of Voices and of course the Gospels. The method is good at allowing the development of the characters and the characters to speak for themselves.
The story relies in part on a degree of coincidence, which a modern author would not be allowed to get away with; Armistead Maupin excepting; but somehow this feels acceptable here.
I expected nothing from this novel, but I got suspense, pace, and at times a comic narrative.
I loved this novel.
 Surprisingly Modern December 3, 2006
6 out of 8 found this review helpful
I'm not usually one to read 'the classics' but embarked upon this one after a recommendation from a trusted source. I amazed myself by enjoying it tremendously. The writing style is surprisingly contemporary, reading like a modern work of historical fiction.
The tale is told in three parts and loses pace somewhat in the third of these, but for such a long book, it's very readable.
Best book I have read in a long while. July 18, 2006
3 out of 7 found this review helpful
I picked up this book as a last resort I had nothing else at hand to read and am so glad I took a chance with this book. It was so enthralling I read it in 3 days flat!
Wilkie Collins is a master in the art of story telling, we open up with Walter Hartright, a drawing master who comes into contact with 'The Woman in White' and so the story unfolds.
The story is told in various diary extracts and documents that unfold to reveal romance, crime and mystery.
I was kept in suspense throughout the novel and could never predict what was coming on the next page.
I highly recomend this book.
"Make 'em laugh, make 'em weep, make 'em wait, and make 'em come back." June 2, 2006
14 out of 15 found this review helpful
This advice for writing serial romances, alternately attributed to Wilkie Collins, Charles Dickens, and Charles Reade, is epitomized in this 1860 novel by Collins, a story of thwarted love, a marriage of obligation, claims on inheritance, the victimization of women, and, most of all, engaging mystery. Collins, often credited as the father of the mystery genre, creates a fast-paced story of Victorian England, revealing much about Victorian society and its values--the role of women, the laws governing marriage and inheritance, the social institutions of the day, the contrasting attitudes toward the aristocracy and the lower classes, and even the level of medical care and the treatment of psychological illness.
When drawing master Walter Hartright is on his way to teach Marian Halcombe and Laura Fairlie at Limmeridge House, in Cumberland, England, he meets a "woman in white," a young woman who knows Limmeridge House well because she was mentored by Mrs. Fairlie, Laura Fairlie's deceased mother. The "woman in white" is Anne Catherick, who looks just like Laura, but who is an escapee from a nearby mental asylum. Upon his arrival at Limmeridge House, Walter immediately falls in love with the beautiful Laura, but she has made a deathbed pledge to her father to marry to Sir Percival Glyde, someone Anne Catherick despises and blames for her own incarceration. Throughout the novel, Anne visits various characters to offer help in combating Sir Percival and his cohorts.
The story unfolds through documents held by a variety of characters, each of whom tells the story from his/her own point of view. The reader develops sympathy for the innocent and beautiful Laura, respect for her homely but bright half-sister, Marian Halcombe, sadness for Walter Hartright, and hatred for Sir Percival and his friend, the Italian count Fosco, with whom Sir Percival is in business. Sir Percival and the count need financing, and it is Laura's inheritance that is at stake. A series of consecutive disasters, along with arguments, revelations of abuse, the fear of exposure, and the contemplation of murder by Sir Percival and Count Fosco, draws the reader irrevocably into the action.
The characters are sympathetically drawn, with Collins showing an early awareness of the influence of psychology on behavior. The descriptions of nature, presented realistically and in minute detail, build suspense, as Collins creates parallels between nature and the details of plot. As is usually the case with romances, chance plays a huge role in the unfolding action, creating cliff-hanging suspense which contributes to the excitement--and pure fun--of this seductive novel. The conclusion, involving a subplot unrelated to the primary action, resolves issues conveniently. The almost-forgotten author of twenty-five novels, Collins was one of the most successful authors of Victorian mysteries, and he is gaining new attention as a result of reprints of this novel and The Moonstone. Mary Whipple
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