The Woman in White

About the book

Walter Hartright meets a distressed woman dressed in white while walking at night, shortly before taking employment at a country house. The encounter acquires new significance through the people he meets there, particularly Laura Fairlie and her half-sister Marian Halcombe. Collins assembles the narrative from several witnesses, each bringing a distinctive voice and a limited portion of the evidence. Suspense grows around marriage, money, legal authority, and the dangerous difference between knowing something and being able to prove it. The story gives intelligence and persistence practical importance, especially when respectable appearances protect those who exercise power. Its changing narrators also make reading an act of comparison. Readers must connect accounts that reveal both the unfolding mystery and the personalities of the people who tell them.

• Identity
• Evidence and credibility
• Power and marriage

Why read it

For a layered suspense story whose memorable narrators each alter the meaning of the evidence.

English text