The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins

Published 1859 · 244,588 words · about 20 hours at an average pace · Horror, Mystery & Crime, Thriller & Suspense

How hard is The Woman in White to read?

The Woman in White scores 61 out of 100 for difficulty on ReadingRate, making it quite demanding. The score is a weighted composite of nine measures: four of how hard the prose is to parse, five of how hard the meaning is to extract.

Vocabulary: 58 out of 100
The novel employs a formal, period-specific vocabulary with words like "querulous," "languidly-fretful," "tablettes," and "chiffoniers." While generally understandable within context, these terms are less common for a modern reader, placing it above accessible contemporary fiction but below works with extensive jargon or invented language.
Sentence structure: 70 out of 100
Sentences are frequently long and intricate, featuring multiple subordinate clauses, parenthetical asides, and extensive use of semicolons and dashes to build detailed descriptions and internal reflections. This demands sustained reader attention to track the flow of thought, though it lacks the extreme experimentalism of Ulysses or Absalom, Absalom!.
Abstraction: 60 out of 100
The narrative is primarily concrete, focusing on plot and character interactions within a mystery framework. However, it includes significant internal monologues and explicit philosophical observations on human nature, art, and society, elevating it beyond purely concrete adventure, yet remaining grounded in the story rather than delving into sustained theoretical discourse.
Information density: 72 out of 100
The text is rich with detailed descriptions of characters, settings, and psychological states, unfolding a complex plot through multiple narrative perspectives. Readers must track various clues and motivations across these viewpoints, requiring considerable attention, though it is not as encyclopedic or multi-layered as works like Ulysses or War and Peace.
Narrative indirection: 30 out of 100
The novel explicitly states its aim to present "the truth always in its most direct and most intelligible aspect" through multiple "witness" narratives. While Walter Hartright's emotions color his account, the events and character motivations are generally conveyed straightforwardly, requiring minimal inference from the reader. The text prioritizes clarity over ambiguity, unlike highly indirect works such as Finnegans Wake.
Symbolic density: 60 out of 100
Recurring motifs, particularly the 'woman in white' and the cleaning of Mrs. Fairlie's grave, carry significant meaning beyond their literal presence, symbolizing innocence, vulnerability, and a haunting past. The contrasting descriptions of Laura (fair) and Marian (dark) also establish clear symbolic pairings. However, these symbols are generally accessible and serve the plot, rather than forming an impenetrable allegorical layer like in Moby-Dick.
Ironic distance: 50 out of 100
The narrative employs a moderate ironic distance, primarily through the portrayal of characters like Mr. Fairlie, whose hypochondria and self-absorption are subtly critiqued by Walter Hartright's observations. Mr. Gilmore's 'practical view' also provides a contrast to the unfolding mystery, highlighting societal complacency. While not a pervasive satire, the author uses character and situation to comment on social norms and individual failings.
Resolution withholding: 70 out of 100
The excerpt concludes with significant narrative tension and unresolved mysteries, including Sir Percival Glyde's true character and the fate of Anne Catherick and Laura Fairlie. The multi-narrator structure inherently delays full understanding, and the ending of Walter's section leaves the reader with a strong sense of impending danger and uncertainty. This deliberate withholding of closure creates suspense, though the overall novel promises eventual answers.
Structural complexity: 75 out of 100
The novel's explicit multi-narrator structure, featuring different 'witnesses' like Walter Hartright and Vincent Gilmore, significantly fragments the narrative perspective. The inclusion of embedded documents, such as the anonymous letter, further complicates the formal presentation. While largely chronological within each narrator's account, the shifts in voice and the piecemeal revelation of information create a complex, layered reading experience.

How The Woman in White is regarded

The Woman in White holds a literary regard score of 73 out of 100, weighing its place in the canon, its critical reception, its influence on other writers, and the standing of its author. Regard is measured separately from difficulty: a demanding book is not necessarily an admired one.

Where The Woman in White sits in Northrop Frye's Anatomy of Criticism

Placed by a full reading of the text (434 passages), not from reputation. Each verdict quotes the passage that earned it. On the axis from myth to irony, The Woman in White scores 57 out of 100. A second mythos, tragedy, pulls at it with a weight of 0.2. About the map of stories.

Mode: Low Mimetic
This is the story of what a Woman’s patience can endure, and what a Man’s resolution can achieve.
Symbol: Formal
“Brougham to Count Fosco, 5 Forest Road. Two o’clock. (John Owen).”
Mythos: Romance (Quest) III (romance iii)
I have given my life to that purpose, and, alone as I stand, if God spares me, I will accomplish it.
Genre: Romance + Novel
the story here presented will be told by more than one pen, as the story of an offence against the laws is told in Court by more than one witness

Where the story of The Woman in White takes place

  • England: Hampstead, Cumberland, Hampshire and London, 1849-1852 (1849 to 1852), the main setting
  • Old Welmingham, 1827: the forged register and Anne's birth
  • Central American expedition, 1849-1850 (1849 to 1850)

5 things that are true of The Woman in White, with the passage for each

  1. Laura's false tombstone gives 25 July 1850 as her death date, a date the plot later contradicts.

    Born March 27th, 1829; married December 22nd, 1849; died July 25th, 1850.

  2. Sir Percival dies when the vestry catches fire while he is inside, trying to destroy the marriage register he had forged.

    The vestry was on fire!

  3. Count Fosco's own narrative admits that the woman who died in his house died a day before Lady Glyde reached London.

    Dead on the 25th, and Lady Glyde was not to arrive in London till the 26th!

  4. The Count's body is found in the Paris Morgue, with two T-shaped cuts that obliterate the Brotherhood's brand.

    were two deep cuts in the shape of the letter T, which entirely obliterated the mark of the Brotherhood.

  5. The last lines make Walter Hartright's infant son the heir of Limmeridge.

    Let me make two eminent personages known to one another: Mr. Walter Hartright—the Heir of Limmeridge.

Scenes in The Woman in White that Frye would name

29 sightings of Frye's terms in the text. The strongest:

Anagnorisis, untitled
Laura, Lady Glyde, was standing by the inscription, and was looking at me over the grave. The pivotal recognition: the 'dead' wife lifts her veil at her own tomb.
Anagnorisis, untitled
There stood Miss Fairlie, a white figure, alone in the moonlight; in her attitude, in the turn of her head, in her complexion, in the shape of her face, the living image Hartright recognises that his 'something wanting' is the resemblance between Laura and the woman in white.
Anagnorisis, untitled
Nothing! Not a vestige of the entry which recorded the marriage of Sir Felix Glyde and Cecilia Jane Elster in the register of the church! Comparing the duplicate register reveals the forgery and Percival's Secret.
Cognitio, untitled
There she is, alive and hearty—God bless her! Gi’ it tongue, lads! Gi’ it tongue! The tenantry publicly recognise Laura, which restores her identity and social place.
Anagnorisis, untitled
In that moment Miss Halcombe recognised her sister—recognised the dead-alive. Marian recognises Laura in the asylum grounds.
Alazon, untitled
The idea that he was not Sir Percival Glyde at all, that he had no more claim to the baronetcy and to Blackwater Park than the poorest labourer who worked on the estate Sir Percival is the impostor-baronet, an alazon exposed.

Books that share these scenes with The Woman in White

About the author

Wilkie Collins