Reading Challenge: Read a book over 100 years old.

The Woman in White is a book about the lives of several people affected by a mysterious woman who seems to appear out of nowhere. The book is written as a collection of several narratives given by the main characters and their testimonies about their time spent at Limmeridge House or around Laura Fairley – one of the main characters. This book was written by Wilkie Collins and was published in 1859.

Like most 19th century books there are a lot of long monologues in this book. I also found a lot of the characters expressed an emotional hyperbole I couldn’t quiet relate to, even as an emotional person, these impassioned rants just seemed over the top to me. This was the same problem I had with Oscar Wilde’s Dorian Gray.

Although the story is a very long one, it is a really good one. The book is considered one of the earliest examples of English detective novels, but there is just so much detail and over dramatic passion that some of the characters get annoying. Laura Fairley was one of them. Her over sensitivity about everything and the love shown to her by Walter Hartright seemed to enable Laura’s irritating weakness of mind. The plot twists though were exciting and they left me guessing until the several mysteries were finally revealed towards the end of the book.

I did use Audible for this book and the reader did an excellent performance as he read and acted out the scenes.

The book is about 672 pages long. And I recommend it to anyone who likes Gothic romance,  mysteries and books written in the 1800’s.  Because of the length and long-winded explanations I do not think any of my children would enjoy reading this book. I did enjoy it mostly. There were even some times when the book was a bit spooky, but it did drag on in some places.

You can buy this book here.