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The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins - Printable Version

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The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins - Aldous Crouch - June 1, 2018

The Woman in White

The first "sensation" novel, and an early detective story! From goodreads:

'In one moment, every drop of blood in my body was brought to a stop... There, as if it had that moment sprung out of the earth, stood the figure of a solitary Woman, dressed from head to foot 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 becomes embroiled in 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.

Matthew Sweet's introduction explores the phenomenon of Victorian 'sensation' fiction, and discusses Wilkie Collins's biographical and societal influences. Included in this edition are appendices on theatrical adaptations of the novel and its serialisation history.



This one has oft been tossed around as a potential CBC title, and I'm super stoked to have an excuse to read it at last!

This is a discussion thread for people who have read or are reading the book in question. With that in mind, there are likely to be spoilers throughout. However, in the event of major twists or “how it ends”, please wrap content in spoiler tags.

Code:
[spoiler]Surprise!content here[/spoiler]



RE: The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins - Ophelia Devine - June 4, 2018

I'm on Chapter 7 or so, mild spoilers for Chapter... 4? 5?

This is less book discussion and more "I want to tell you guys this story that happened recently from work" so buckle in. xD

I had this woman bring in a "stray" dog. She knew who owned the dog, but said her neighbors couldn't keep him in their yard and he was always breaking out and chasing her smaller dog, and had attacked said small dog in the past, and attacked her when she tried to pull him off the little dog, would chase her into the house, etc. etc. This dog's name is "Bowser" and he's a huge, tan and white pit bull, so it's hard to say whether he really attacked anything or whether she just equates pits with attacking. Pit bulls do usually have strong prey drives and it's not uncommon to meet one who can tear through a cat or a chicken or a small dog, but you just never know.

So I called Animal Control and said "Hey, do you know Bowser? Is he really aggressive or not, before I go poke him with needles?" Animal Control doesn't have a clue what I'm talking about so I told them the whole story, but this woman has never called them about the dog (which means she's probably exaggerating how 'aggressive' he is). So I vaccinate him, call his owners, move him back to the kennel, and go on with my day. Twenty minutes later, Animal Control calls me and says "Oh, hey, Bowser's owners called us. They're coming to the humane society to reclaim him, but they're bringing a different stray pit bull."

So it turns out that when Bowser's owners realized their dog had gotten out of their yard again, they said to their assembled friend group (some of whom were probably drunk lbr), "Oh, no! Our pit got out! Help us find him or else he'll end up at the humane society again and we'll have to pay to bail him out!" The friends scatter, searching the neighborhood for this dog. One of them spots a female, all-black pit bull in a fenced yard and decides 'Oh, I found Bowser, I'm going to go steal this dog out of this yard and bring him to my friends." Which he does. Bowser's owners have no idea where this dog came from or how to return it, so they bring her to the humane society as a stray.

Meanwhile, Animal Control gets a call from the owner of the black pit (whose name is Chevy), and they're frantic, because some drunken fool just stole their dog out of their yard. So Animal Control calls me and we confirmed we had the dog, and waived their impound fees when they came to reclaim her, because... that was not their fault. :P

ALL THAT TO SAY, this is immediately what I thought of when those guys drove by in the chaise and the only description of this woman they offered was that she was probably wearing white. THIS IS HOW YOU END UP ACCIDENTALLY STEALING THE WRONG PIT BULL FROM THE YARD, GUYS. DESCRIPTIONS ARE IMPORTANT.

RE: The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins - Ursula Black - June 8, 2018

I JUST FINISHED THIS.

I really liked it, I preferred Lady Audley's Secret but it was really good and kept me on my toes.

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RE: The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins - Ophelia Devine - June 10, 2018

I know I've no right to expect any differently of a novel written in the VE, but it really bothers me that we get to hear directly from male narrators and the only female contribution so far is excerpts from her diary. D<

RE: The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins - Ophelia Devine - July 7, 2018

Just finished!

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