Wilkie Collins, The Woman in White

Bianca Tredennick (SUNY, Oneonta)
Download PDF Add to Bookshelf Report an Error

Wilkie Collins’s 1860 novel,

The Woman in White,

marks the first major achievement in the genre now known as the Sensation Novel. With its complex plot, thrilling storyline, engaging characters, and unique narrative structure, the novel was famous in its own time, cementing Collins’s reputation as a major writer of his age. Today, it is still widely read and studied. Popular with general audiences as well as with scholars, it stands as the most famous of Collins’s many novels.

In 1859, Collins began writing The Woman in White. His friend and colleague Charles Dickens had recently started a new periodical All the Year Round, and Dickens wanted to launch the journal with a novel by a known author. The first numbers had featured his own The Tale of Two Cities in serial form, and

2911 words

Citation: Tredennick, Bianca. "The Woman in White". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 11 April 2006 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=8195, accessed 19 March 2024.]

8195 The Woman in White 3 Historical context notes are intended to give basic and preliminary information on a topic. In some cases they will be expanded into longer entries as the Literary Encyclopedia evolves.

Save this article

If you need to create a new bookshelf to save this article in, please make sure that you are logged in, then go to your 'Account' here

Leave Feedback

The Literary Encyclopedia is a living community of scholars. We welcome comments which will help us improve.