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Reader's Paradise

The Woman in White

17 years ago

I was blown away by watching a rental of the Masterpiece Theatre presentation of this Gothic story. Has anyone here read any of Wilkie Collins' books? He was a contemporary of Charles Dickens, but the work of the two authors could not be more different, IMHO. I thought some of the themes in this bizarre romance were decidedly "modern" for the time in which it was written. It must have shocked many readers.

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Comments (7)

kkay_md
17 years ago
Oh yes, I love Wilkie Collins. His novels (I've read "Woman in White" and "The Moonstone") are more like detective novels than anything in Dickens' work, I think.
J C
17 years ago
One of my favorite writers. I went through a Wilkie Collins period, during which I read much of his work. Very entertaining ghost stories, among other things. Also read MR James during this time, another great teller of ghostly and supernatural tales. Must reads when the leaves start to turn!
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martin_z
17 years ago
The Woman in White is a terrific yarn. However, if the production you watched is the same one as was shown on the TV here in the UK a few years ago, then the TV production took some severe liberties with the ending; some of the "shocking themes" were inserted by the production company and were not in the book.

The Moonstone is fun, too.
timallan
17 years ago
The Woman in White is one of my favourite Victorian novels. I haven't got around to The Moonstone, but it's in my TBR pile. I just finished a short novel by Wilkie Collins, The Haunted Hotel, which I thoroughly enjoyed. It is almost absurdly melodramatic, but still very fun.
rosefolly
17 years ago
I read The Woman in White during lazy afternoons while on vacation in Italy one year. I enjoyed it immensely.

It seems to me that I also read The Moonstone when I got back but I'm not sure. The plot is familiar to me but since I've seen the film version that's not evidence one way or the other.

Rosefolly
rosefolly
17 years ago
I used to belong to an online discussion group in the pre-WWW days that discussed the literature of this era. It was called Gaslight and was hosted at a university in Canada. After a couple of years I dropped out due to the pressure of work, and in any case, I think the discussion group is now disbanded. But if you enjoy Wilkie Collins and genre literature of that era, you might enjoy some of the resouces they compiled.

Rosefolly

Here is a link that might be useful: Gaslight
thelurkerking
17 years ago
Actually, Wilkie Collins' "The Moonstone" is regarded as being the first fictional detective novel ever puplished in English, and its Sergeant Cuff, as being the grandfather of all fictional police detectives.

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