Contemporary Reviews, Adaptations, and Imitations
September 8, 1860 – The London Review
“The Woman in White”
“The Woman in White” is a republication from Mr. Dickens’s serial, “All the Year Round.” The tale was, as we understand from the preface to the present edition, received with a “warm welcome among English and American readers.” The author now appeals to three classes of persons, in the hope of obtaining their approval:— first, to those who know his story as it was weekly narrated; next, to those who will now read it for the first time in its entirety; and lastly, to the reviewers or critics, from whom he asks the favor of not “telling his story at second hand.”
We cannot venture to express an opinion as to what may be the feelings of persons who may undertake a second perusal of “The Woman in White.” Our duty is, whilst complying with the author’s request, of not telling, nor trying to tell his story for him, to give an honest and unbiased opinion as to a book which we have now read for the first time.
“The Woman in White” is, in our judgment, a very interesting book—not equal in all its parts; but still a novel which justly may claim a high rank amongst the light literature of the day.
The plan on which the work is constructed has the merit of novelty. “The story of the book is told throughout by the characters. They are all placed in different positions along the chain of events; and they all take the chain up in turn, and carry it on to the end.”
This is not only a new but a very good idea. It is much better than the old and now long-disused plan, of telling a story in a series of letters; and if it could have been carrying out, in perfect accordance with the characters of the several persons introduced, would be entitled to the highest praise. The author has not been able to act upon his own idea, because he wrote a tale to be published in a periodical; and one of the exigencies of that form of publication is, that every portion of it must be telling—that is, that there shall be no pause, nor rest in it—every particle must be glittering with points, or glaring with excitement. And so it is with “The Woman in White.” All the characters, by whom the story is supposed to be told, “must speak in passion,” and all of course “do it in King Cambyses’ vein.” The great power of Mr. Wilkie Collins as a narrator, is in his minute observation of the most trifling circumstances which can aid in the portraiture of an individual; and every one that he introduces as a narrator has the selfsame qualification. The attractions of the tale are intensified, because it is so told; but then what it gains in interest it loses in skillfulness as a picture drawn from nature. It is no more like what a real statement of facts would be if actually detailed by each of the persons introduced, than one of Doctor Samuel Johnson’s Pitt-and-Pulteny debates, as invented by him for an old magazine, was like a real parliamentary debate in the House of Commons between the s