The Woman in White

I started reading The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins last fall.  I had found the book in the "great classics" section at Barnes & Noble.  I was fascinated with it as it was renowed as the first mystery novel.  The author was a personal friend of Charles Dickens and the information that I read stated that The Woman in White was more popular in the 1860s than all of Dickens' novels combined.  I could not believe that I had never heard of it and couldn't wait to read "one of the best sensation novels of all time."

The first third of the book was a little slow and I wasn't sure if I would be able to make it through it.  It wasn't that it was boring, just a lot of time was spent introducing characters.  All of that changed around page 240.  Plot twists, lovers separated by an arranged marriage and a mysterious woman in white held my interested and the pace of my reading picked up quite a bit.  I finished the book last night, reading non-stop for several hours to do so.  It definitely was suspenseful and I enjoyed trying to solve the mystery along with the main character.  I only found one part a little frustrating.  The windbag in the story took up fifteen pages explaining his role in the deception, even though the reader already knew what he had done.  I wasn't surprised by the long narrative as the "Count" was pompous in the story, so it only made sense that he would take up a huge part of the ending.  Nevertheless, I was glad to have the novel to read during our self-imposed quaratine and can't wait to watch the series on PBS.