The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins

I will endeavor to remember what I can (under protest), and to write what I can (also under protest); and what I can’t remember and can’t write, Louis (his butler) must remember, and write for me. He is an ass, and I am an invalid: and we are likely to make all sorts of mistakes between us. How humiliating!

The above is a pretty sweet quote from the funniest of the book’s dozen different narrators. This one’s name is Mr. Fairlie and he really is an invalid, a very sarcastic, hilarious one that induces literal lol’s, so I’m guessing Louis really is an ass as well. But like I said this book is told through the eyes of its many different characters, but probably not in the interesting way you’re thinking, which is many people giving their perspective on one single situation. (Something akin to a very funny story concocted in sophomore English with Mr. Williams… “I passed by the window completely unnoticed.”… “I definitely just saw a man pass by the window.”) It’s more like the story being told by one character and then another character picking up the chain exactly where it was dropped. So as you can see this allows ol’ Wilkie get heavy in the plot all the while using the first person and different voices, which had to be fun, because, at one point, he got to write as an invalid.


This book is a solid archetype of the Victorian age, so you can imagine its proper prose and old words, but overall it’s beautifully written. The main kicker though is the plot, which was the main reason I picked up this handsome copy from a used bookshop. It’s loaded with twists and turns and gets a little complicated, attesting to how brilliantly it was orchestrated. That’s the main thing going for this thriller, so I can recommend this book if you’re into that, although it is a bit daunting at 650 pages.

What’s also kind of peculiar is that the text is subtly misogynistic, but never too offending (but who am I to say?), and actually pretty funny. The examples are mostly just one-line snippets and there were some really good ones in the first of the book but I only started dog-earing the pages about halfway through. Anyway, here’s one example:

“It holds with animals, it holds with children, and it holds with women, who are nothing but children grown up.”

I should add that while sentences like this are riddled throughout the book, Collins does make one of his female characters very strong, independent and sharp.