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Trama e riassunto di La donna in bianco
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About 16 h 10 min to read.A chi è rivolto
For readers who love tense investigations, sinister country houses, clever villains, and women resisting powerful men.
Che cos’è questo libro
The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins is a mystery novel about a drawing teacher whose encounter with a frightened stranger draws him into a plot against a young heiress. Readers still turn to it for its tense investigation, memorable suspects, and sharp sense of how money and marriage can put a woman at another person’s mercy.
In questo riassunto
- 1Walter encounters a mysterious woman in whiteFree
- 2Walter falls for an already engaged heiress
- 3Warnings cast doubt on Laura’s engagement
- 4Money and manipulation threaten Laura and Marian
- 5Several accounts reveal a struggle over truth
Punto chiave 1 di 5
Walter encounters a mysterious woman in white
Walter Hartright is walking home near London when a woman dressed entirely in white appears on the road and asks for help. Her fear and strange manner trouble him. Soon afterward, he learns that she has escaped from an asylum. Their brief meeting follows him into a new job as a drawing teacher at Limmeridge House in Cumberland.
That’s 1 of 5 key points.
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Go deeper: the whole of La donna in bianco
About 16 h 10 min to read.Who’s who
- Walter Hartright
- A drawing teacher who falls in love with Laura Fairlie and helps her protective half-sister, Marian Halcombe.
- Marian Halcombe
- Laura Fairlie’s resourceful half-sister is her closest protector and an ally of Walter Hartright.
- Laura Fairlie
- A gentle young heiress, Laura is engaged to Sir Percival Glyde and closely resembles Anne Catherick.
- Anne Catherick
- The frightened stranger Walter encounters has connections to Laura’s family and a deep fear of Sir Percival Glyde.
- Sir Percival Glyde
- Laura’s prospective husband is a secretive baronet whose interest in her fortune troubles those who protect her.
- Count Fosco
- Sir Percival’s charming and calculating friend exerts an unsettling influence over the people around him.
About this edition
Every format is free to start, and print and large print are at cost.
- LengthAbout 251,000 words
- Reading timeAbout 16 h 45 min
- FormatseBook, large-print eBook, audiobook, 15-minute summary
- LanguagesEnglish and 12 other languages
Questions about La donna in bianco
Who is the woman in white?
The woman Walter meets is Anne Catherick, a frightened fugitive from an asylum. She has ties to Limmeridge House and closely resembles Laura Fairlie. Her fear of Sir Percival Glyde makes her encounter with Walter central to the mystery.
Is The Woman in White a detective story or a Gothic novel?
It combines both, and is often called a sensation novel. Its search for evidence, competing witness accounts, and careful reconstruction of events also make it an important early mystery novel.
Why is Marian Halcombe important?
Marian is Laura’s strongest defender and one of the novel’s main investigators. Her diary records the growing danger at Blackwater Park. She relies on observation, courage, and practical judgment in a society that gives men much greater legal and financial power.
Is The Woman in White based on a true story?
The novel is fiction, but Collins drew inspiration from a French legal case involving the confinement of a woman and the theft of her identity. First published in serial form in 1859–1860, it turns real anxieties about marriage, inheritance, and asylums into a suspenseful plot.