Recommendations from our site
“It’s credited with being the beginning of the whole genre of suspense. That’s why I picked it. I’ve only read it twice, but it’s lingered in my consciousness: the images and the feel of it. He really is a master of the tricks. I read somewhere that there are 40 cliff-hangers in it—he sort of invented the cliff-hanger. And I like the Russian doll structure of all the different accounts. You gradually lift off each little doll’s body and find another plot strand and another secret. I love that. It’s very cleverly done.” Read more...
Lucy Atkins, Novelist
“Where do you start with the story of The Woman in White? What do you do with a novel that has so many strange characters? How do you even begin to define its plot?……The novel is told to us by a number of narrators—Walter Hartright, Marian Halcombe, Fosco—almost every three chapters they’re switching. The glory of it is you get this story as if it’s a court hearing, everybody is presenting their evidence from their own particular perspectives.” Read more...
The Best Books by Wilkie Collins
Jason Hall, Literary Scholar
” I just have more time for voices speaking from the past than I do contemporary fiction authors of whom, quite frankly, I have yet to discover one I like. This is perhaps why, for me, The Woman in White is the perfect book. I love the plot, I love the characters, I love the settings, I just absolutely adore it. If you haven’t read it yet, I envy you, that you still have that experience in life ahead of you.” Read more...
Sophie Roell, Journalist
