The Woman in White

The Woman in White is a sensation novel by Wilkie Collins, a prominent Victorian novelist known for helping to establish the modern mystery and detective genres. The Woman in White was published in serialized form in All the Year Round, a periodical run by Collins’s friend and mentor Charles Dickens, from November 26, 1859, to August 25, 1860. This was Collins’s fifth novel, set from 1849 to 1851, a decade before it was published. The narrative is shaped by protagonist Walter Hartright’s investigation of a mystery that begins when he meets a “woman in white” on the road to London. It is made up of a collection of witness testimonies and documents that are collected to shed light on the case—a variation of the epistolary narrative form that was popular in 18th and 19th-century fiction. As such, the story is told by multiple narrators, including many of the primary characters, and explores The Elusiveness of Truth and themes of The Nature of Justice and The Harm of Gender Inequality.

This guide refers to the Classics Collins edition published by Harper Collins in 2011, which is based on the text that Collins prepared for publication as a one- or three-volume edition. Chapter breaks, as well as some minor plot details (e.g., dates), differ in editions based on the serialized novel.

Content Warning: The source text and this guide refer to domestic abuse and abuse of people with mental health conditions; the source text also features outdated language surrounding mental health, replicated in this guide in direct quotes only.

Plot Summary

Walter Hartright is a young drawing master who lives in London. One night on his way back to his rooms from Hampstead, he meets a distressed young woman on the road into London and gives her directions. She is dressed all in white. As they talk, he discovers that she has a connection to Limmeridge, a village in Cumberland where he has recently been given a teaching job. Soon after they part ways, he hears some men tell a police officer that they are searching for a woman who has escaped from their psychiatric hospital.

The next day, Walter travels to Limmeridge House, which belongs to Frederick Fairlie, a wealthy landowner and amateur art collector. Walter will teach drawing to Fairlie’s niece, Laura Fairlie, and Marian Halcombe, Laura’s half-sister. When he meets Laura, Walter notices that she resembles the woman in white. With Marian’s help, Walter discovers that the woman is called Anne Catherick and that she lived near Limmeridge for a short time during her childhood. Laura’s mother took a special interest in the child, who appeared to have a learning disability. Anne remained devoted to Laura’s mother for her kindness and wore white in Mrs. Fairlie’s honor because Mrs. Fairlie had told her that white suited her best.

Walter and Laura develop feelings for one another, but as Laura is already betrothed to a man named Sir Percival Glyde, Marian feels that Walter ought to leave Limmeridge. Before he leaves, Laura receives a strange letter recounting a disturbing dream about her fiancé. Walter believes that it was Anne who sent the letter. He meets her again in Limmeridge and deduces that Sir Percival put Anne in the asylum and that she hates him for it.

Mr. Gilmore, the family lawyer, is uneasy over the terms of Laura’s marriage settlement with Sir Percival, which will see him inherit her fortune if she dies childless. Laura confesses to her fiancé that she is in love with another man, giving him the opportunity to break the engagement. He declines to do so. After they are married, they travel to Italy for six months. Walter, heartbroken, takes a job as a draughtsman for an expedition to Honduras.

Sir Percival and Lady Glyde return to Sir Percival’s estate, Blackwater Park, in Hampshire. They are with Sir Percival’s friend and Laura’s uncle by marriage, Count Fosco. Marian lives at Blackwater with Laura and her new husband. It becomes apparent that Sir Percival is in financial difficulties. He tries to force Laura to sign a document allowing him to pay his debts from her inheritance. Laura refuses.

Meanwhile, Anne is dying. She is no longer afraid of Sir Percival and travels to Blackwater to help Laura. She says that she knows a secret that will give Laura power over her husband but does not have a chance to disclose it before they are interrupted. Learning that Anne and Laura have spoken and believing that his wife is already in possession of his secret, Sir Percival concocts a plan with Fosco to solve both their money worries and ensure his secret is never revealed.

Marian partially overhears what they are plotting but in doing so becomes soaked by a rainstorm and falls seriously ill; consequently, the full details of what has happened are only pieced together after the fact. While Marian is still recovering, Sir Percival and Fosco trick Laura into traveling to London. Meanwhile, they kidnap Anne, who dies at Count Fosco’s London home and is buried as Laura. Laura is then drugged and taken to the psychiatric hospital as Anne.

In her grief over her sister’s supposed death, which she suspects was murder, Marian visits the hospital. She hopes that Anne can shed some light on what has happened but instead discovers that Laura is alive, though traumatized and sickly. She bribes the nurse to help Laura escape.

Walter returns from Honduras and soon learns that Laura is alive. He lives with the sisters, posing as their brother, and begins to investigate what happened in the hopes of restoring Laura’s legal identity. The collected testimonies of the novel are a result of this investigation. He ultimately discovers Sir Percival’s secret: that he is illegitimate and not entitled to his title or property. Moreover, he committed criminal fraud by altering a marriage register. He had paid Mrs. Catherick for her help laying hold of the register, and he believed that Anne had discovered this that made him so determined to have her committed. Sir Percival attempts to burn incriminating documents and dies in the fire.

With Sir Percival dead and the register destroyed, Walter needs a new way to restore Laura’s identity. He believes Anne died before Laura arrived in London, but none of the witnesses have been able to remember the exact dates. The only person living who knows them is Count Fosco. At the opera with his friend Pesca, Walter learns that Fosco betrayed an Italian revolutionary society. Walter forces a written confession from Fosco in exchange for safe passage out of England; however, Fosco is later killed by an agent of the society he betrayed.

Laura’s identity is legally restored, and the inscription on her gravestone is replaced with that of Anne Catherick who, it transpires, was Laura’s half-sister. Walter and Laura have by this point married. On the death of Frederick Fairlie, their son inherits Limmeridge.