When committing a crime, it's usually the small details that are missed alongside their attempted cover-ups which give the criminal away. Such is the case of Percival Glyde who marries the young Laura Fairlie, in spite of her confession of loving someone else, in order to cover up his financial embarrassments which can only be done if Laura chooses to sign away her rights to her inheritance. Unfortunately for Percival, a half mad-woman he had committed to a private asylum named Anne Catherick has escaped and the secret nature of his relationship to her, in addition to her uncanny resemblance to Laura and her alluded knowledge to his great secret have put everything he hopes to accomplish in jeopardy. With the help of Count Fosco, many wrongs are committed and Walter Hartwright (the artist to whom Laura first fell in love with) is tasked with nursing Laura back to mental health and finding the proof and method of how, when and why the wrongs were committed. Sins long past buried are unearthed in Wilkie Collins The Woman in White.
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From a literary historical point of view this book was pivotal in the transition from mystery/horror stories taking place abroad or in fanciful locations and bringing their occurrence into the common mans home. It is a Victorian romance, horror and mystery novel rolled into one and as such, be warned, this is NOT an easy or a fast read. The overwhelming amount of detail and set-up to the actual events leading up to the crime can make it easy to get lost in and can make the book seem very slow, but if you make it past the point of the crime the book picks up speed and it's pretty hard to put down at that point. Interestingly, the novel is set up as a series of entries from various persons point of view necessary for the building of a legal case kind of like the modern children's movie Hoodwinked. There is a romance woven into the story between Walter and Laura which is the driving reason as to why Walter feels the need to intervene where the law would not but is otherwise not integral to the story. I think this would also be of interest to those who like historical crime novels as identity theft is a main component of the story and the story would also be of interest to those interested in classic psychological horror as Laura gets committed to an asylum when sane and madness is part of the general theme. While I am keeping the book for my library, it's not one I would recommend to those unless they liked the Victorian genre or books like those in the Sherlock Holmes series, classic psychological horror or classic romance.
Bookleaf
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