Mysterious Lonely Woman in Victorian Dress Departing Into the Distance
Any list of "the greatest novels of all time" will probably feature this one. When it was first published, it wowed the reading public, and manufacturers got on the ban
Any list of "the greatest novels of all time" will probably feature this one. When it was first published, it wowed the reading public, and manufacturers got on the bandwagon, creating "Woman in White" perfume and "Woman in White" cloaks and bonnets. There were "Woman in White" waltzes and quadrilles displayed in music-shops. "Walter" became a fashionable name for babies, and the names of other characters in the novel became popular too. Cats were named "Fosco" and instantly looked more sinister in their owners' eyes. The poet Edward FitzGerald even named his boat, "Marian Halcombe". It can truly be said that this novel was a sensation.
It is quite apt then, that The Woman in White is generally regarded as the first of the Victorian "sensation" novels. Not only did it establish a new genre, arising from melodramatic novels, gothic and romantic novels, and drawing on "penny dreadfuls" and fictionalised criminal biographies, but it immediately gave rise to many imitators. No longer would gruesome and spectacular crimes only happen in fantastic Medieval castles, but behind the doors of ordinary domestic environments. Virtuous women would still be menaced by dastardly cads, but the element of realism was key. Mrs Henry Wood's "East Lynne" was published the next year in 1861, and Mary Elizabeth Braddon's "Lady Audley's Secret", the year after (1862). And to top all this, The Woman in White is also considered to be among the first mystery novels.
Yet in 1860, at the time of publication, Wilkie Collins was still very much in the shadow of Charles Dickens.
Back in April 1852, the twenty-seven year old Wilkie Collins had already turned his back on convention. His father wanted him to become a clergyman, but after some agonising, Wilkie Collins went a different way, and trained to become a barrister. He completed his legal studies and was called to the bar in 1851, but never formally practised, instead deciding to become a writer. Wilkie Collins then began writing for his friend Charles Dickens's weekly magazine, "Household Words". Dickens, then forty years of age, was by now a literary phenomenon, with his fingers in lots of pies. Although Dickens himself earned over a thousand pounds per annum from his work on the magazine, Wilkie Collins was initially paid by the column. Four years later, in September 1856, he finally became a staff writer who would be paid the standard rate of five guineas per week. But he was still one of many in Dickens's "stable".
For Victorian readers, to read a novel in serial form was the norm, and quite a few of these serials have since become classic novels. Other major Victorian writers who also had their novels printed in serial form first, in Dickens's magazines "Household Words" and "All the Year Round", include Elizabeth Gaskell and Anthony Trollope. In fact The Woman in White was the very first novel to be published in Charles Dickens's brand new weekly magazine "All the Year Round", between 1859 and 1860.
That very first weekly issue contained the concluding installment of Dickens's "A Tale of Two Cities" followed immediately by the opening installment of a new novel with no author credited, a sensational "novel-with-a-secret", which was called The Woman in White. Sales immediately increased! Holding back the author's name may seem incredible to us now, but Charles Dickens was very strict that no authors in his magazines were ever named, so that he could keep them as his "staff writers". Incidentally, a later issue during the run of The Woman in White, also has the start of "Framley Parsonage" and "East Lynne". What a treasure trove these Victorian readers had in their magazines!
Yet just two months after serialisation had started, Dickens was calling The Woman in White "masterly", and later, Prince Albert admired it so much that he sent copies of the novel as gifts. Charles Dickens began writing his own sensation novel just months later, called "Great Expectations". Both novels are thrilling even now, with a strong story line, gothic feel and complex plot. Both dealt with secrets, past and present, questions and doubts about identity and social position. Both made use of the ideas of suspect wills, forged documents, inheritances, secret marriages, and illegitimacy; themes very much in flux in the changing society in the Victorian era.
What makes these novels so appealing to us now is that they are both exciting page-turners, with suspenseful mystery at their heart, and twists a-plenty. The Woman in White is a complex tale, with an unusual narrative structure. It is told by several narrators, and different forms, either as reported action, or diaries, or letters. In a way it resembles an epistolary novel, as each narrator has a distinct narrative voice. They form a chain of "witness" statements which gradually unravel a cunning conspiracy by (view spoiler)[ two memorable aristocratic monsters, Sir Percival Glyde and his despicable companion, one of the most seductive villains in Victorian literature, the Italian Count Fosco. (hide spoiler)] Switching between the different and diverse viewpoints, adds interest and depth to the story. We begin to wonder who is to be trusted, and who might be an unreliable narrator. We also see how some characters are vague, or naive, others are driven and passionate, yet others again are vain, or dissembling.
Wilkie Collins is very much in the driving seat throughout this novel, carefully rationing out little pieces of the jigsaw, and disclosing the secret like a series of Russian dolls. He also manipulates our feelings, controlling who we think we trust. The entire novel is deviously plotted. The original structure was geared towards a "cliffhanger" at the end of each installment, leaving us wanting more. Oddly though, reading in the novel form we now have available, this is not as evident.
Dickens's serialised installments could all be chopped up neatly into between three and five chapters, but that was impossible with The Woman in White. The narratives varied in length from one page to, surprisingly, two hundred. Some are divided into parts, and sometimes an installment contained parts of one and part of another. One narrator even returns later. The only choice was to have a completely new structure for the novel itself: in three Epochs rather than Parts, and chapters of similar lengths sweeping across the original divisions completely independently. The chapter names are also slightly different, for instance this magnificent original narrative title:
"The Narrative of Isidor Ottavio Baldassare Fosco. Count of the Holy Roman Empire. Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the Brazen Crown. Perpetual Archmaster of the Rosicrucian Masons of Mesopotamia. Attached, in Honorary Capacities, to Societies Musical, Societies Medical, Societies Philosophical, and Societies General Benevolent, Throughout Europe & & &"
has, disappointingly in the novel version, been reduced to merely:
"The Story Continued by Isidor, Ottavio, Baldassare, Fosco"
which hardly conjures up the enormous bombast and swagger of the character, whom I can imagine signing his name and illustrious titles with a satisfyingly sweeping flourish of his quill pen. These details so reminiscent of Dickens are sadly lost in most modern editions. Also, the suspense of the former endings of each installment are also lost, or rather subsumed into part of the action, but the whole flows just as well, and is just as addictive.
Wilkie Collins clearly understood people very well. He has created a wealth of wonderful characters. There is the faithful and angelic Laura Fairlie, (view spoiler)[ entrapped by (hide spoiler)] the sinister, secretive Percival Glyde; there is her impossible uncle, the effete connoisseur of the Arts, Frederick Fairlee, source of much of the humour in this book, with his monumental selfishness and exaggerated hypochondria. There is of course the wonderful Count Fosco, charismatic and cunning, with his cockatoo, his canary-birds, and his pet white mice, who run over his immense body, partnered by his overly dutiful, malevolently vindictive wife. There is at least one young protagonist for Wilkie Collins's readers to identify with in Walter Hartright, a young man with a strong sense of justice. Another is the intelligent, and resourceful Marian Halcombe, one of his most powerful creations.
Some consider that with this mannish, eloquent character, Collins was attempting to create a positive portrayal of a lesbian woman, within the constraints of the time. This is possible, given Collins's admiration of women, but it is all down to interpretation and subtext. Collins attacked middle-class hypocrisy, perhaps because he was himself so bohemian. Outwardly, he was a member of the Establishment. He belonged to the "Garrick Club" and to all outward appearances was a typical Victorian gentleman.
Wilkie Collins lived respectably enough with his mother for many years, whilst setting up his mistress, Caroline Graves, in a house nearby. But in 1858, defying public opinion, and much to Dickens's disapproval, Collins began living with Caroline and her daughter Harriet. Charles Dickens too, was very much the family man in public. In fact although he and Collins both professed to be Christians, they had extraordinary lifestyles, and their views of marriage were very different from each other, for such close friends. Although we know of Dickens's long-term relationship with Nelly Ternan, as a man of propriety, he had attempted to keep this a closely guarded secret.
Caroline kept a small shop nearby Collins's home. She had married young, had a child, and been widowed. Wilkie Collins treated Harriet, whom he called Carrie, as his own daughter, and helped to pay for her education. The two stayed together for most of their lives although he refused to marry her as he disliked the institution of marriage. Extraordinarily for the time, Wilkie Collins also had another mistress, the working-class Martha Rudd, by whom he had three children, in a house just a few streets away.
The second installment of The Woman in White begins very melodramatically, to modern eyes, with a young man, Walter Hartright meeting a strange woman dressed all in white, in the mist. This dramatic meeting was rumoured to be how he first met Caroline Graves, on a night-time walk over Hampstead Heath. In The Woman in White Walter stops, every drop of blood in his body frozen still by "the touch of a hand laid lightly and suddenly" upon his shoulder. For us, for the first time, we meet the mysterious Anne Catherick, whom we know as The Woman in White.
But I shall not tell the story here. There are plenty of places where you can read a synopsis, should you want to, but wouldn't that spoil all the twists?
After serialisation, The Woman in White was published in novel form in 1860, and also that year produced on stage, where it was a sensation. When serialised works from his magazines were published in novel form, or on stage, Dickens allowed the advertising to specifically name the authors of the novels. The poster, which was designed for booksellers' windows for The Woman in White was a woodcut by Frederick Walker, and at last Wilkie Collins could have his name attributed to the novel.
The public loved The Woman in White, but contemporary critics were generally hostile. Now both critics and readers regard either this, or "The Moonstone" as his best novel, and it was certainly his own favourite. But at the time, he was very much viewed as an adjunct to Dickens, the two having collaborated on several articles and stories every year. 1857 had been a particularly fruitful year for the two, with the writing of three major works and the production of the play "The Frozen Deep". Most recently Charles Dickens's "The Haunted House" had included both authors, with Dickens's stories framing stories by five others.
Interestingly, Dickens's next novel was to be "Great Expectations", the most gothic of all his novels. The two writers were clearly writing very closely together, and producing a very similar feel to their works. In fact reading parts of this, Dickens's influence seems very clear at some points, especially in a few of the cameo roles. Wilkie Collins had a wry touch which was all his own, but some humorous passages jump out as being Charles Dickens's irrepressible silliness. Also sometimes the sarcasm (for instance of Marian Halcombe) is very reminiscent of Dickens.
In 1862, the split finally came. Wilkie Collins resigned from Dickens's staff, and the separation of Dickens's and Collins's identities as writers became more defined. Wilkie Collins was not to work with Dickens again until the pair collaborated on "No Thoroughfare" for the 1867 Christmas edition of the magazine. Immediately after this story came the first installment of "The Moonstone" in serial form, the novel that would finally establish Wilkie Collins's reputation.
However he was in poor health. He continued to suffer from gout, and it now especially affected his eyes. Within a year, the laudanum he was taking for his continual gout became a serious problem.
Collins said of his early days with Dickens, "We saw each other every day, and were as fond of each other as men could be." Wilkie Collins certainly suffered after the death of Charles Dickens in 1870. Some view Wilkie Collins as a draining influence on Charles Dickens, and it has even been suggested that the strain of mentoring Collins contributed to Dickens's death. Perhaps the consequent loss of Dickens as both a friend and a literary mentor, partly caused Collins's increased dependence upon laudanum. He certainly never bettered the novels he published in the 1860s.
Wilkie Collins's later novels contained more social commentary, and were not as sensational. This one and "The Moonstone" represent the best, the most intriguing, and most enduring of his career. With their themes of jealousy, murder and adultery, these thrilling tales are as electrifying, horrific, suspenseful, and intricately plotted as any Victorian classics you are likely to read.
Source: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/5890.The_Woman_in_White
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