Wilkie Collins

This extraordinary work ranks among the foremost purely melodramatic or sensation novels of modern times. Mr. Collins has thrown a force and power into this story, of which the reader has only seen intimations in his former works. After opening the narrative with a cheerful sketch of Professor Pesea, an Italian Refugee, combining in his small person all the pleasant traits of his nation, the author at once begins his work, and in a few sentences throws a weird and mystic glow over the story, which we feel to deepen and extend, until the disclosure of the plot by the discovery of the register and subsequent death of Sir Percival Glyde. This effort is all the more remarkable when we examine the simplicity of the means employed, which consist of a series of Runic repetitions so strongly exempliﬁed in Edgar Poe’s compositions. The misfortune which must attach to all novels of the terrific school, is, that the termination of necessity explains that which the imagination has been before allowed to dwell upon, and a feeling of disappointment must succeed the denouement however horrible that may be. This, Mr. Collins has avoided as far as practicable, in withdrawing the attention of the reader from the éclaircissement, by relating a tremendous interview, tremendous from the self-control exercised by both parties, between Hartright and Count Fosca, a villain of entirely new stamp, except in his fondness for pets, in which he resembles, if we remember correctly, one of the Council of Three who, while condemning thousands to the guillotine, would fondle his cat with feminine tenderness. But we will not spoil the plot, plain yet complex, elaborate but not confused. What we can do, however, is to advise those who enjoy the stronger forms of light literature, to lose no time in reading this most interesting novel.

The Woman in White

What did Mrs Versey do to deserve this </3

Phoebe

Nature has so much to do in this world, and is engaged in generating such a vast variety of co-existent productions, that she must surely be now and then too flurried and confused to distinguish between the different processes that she is carrying on at the same time. Starting from this point of view, it will always remain my private persuasion that Nature was absorbed in making cabbages when Mrs Versey was born, and that the good lady suffered the consequences of a vegetable preoccupation in the mind of the Mother of us all.

'I have heard,' she said, 'and I believe it, that the fondest and truest of all affections is the affection which a woman ought to bear to her husband. When our engagement began, that affection was mine to give, if I could, and yours to win, if you could. Will you pardon me, and spare me, Sir Percival, if I acknowledge that it is not so any longer?'

Jemima Scott

This is the story of what a Woman's patience can endure, and what a Man's resolution can achieve.

My heart could take her no closer to me, or I should have loved her then as I had never loved her yet.

Men! They are the enemies of our innocence and our peace - they drag us away from our parents' love and our sisters' friendship - they take us body and soul to themselves, and fasten our helpless lives to theirs as they chain up a dog to his kennel.

It is the grand misfortune of my life that nobody will let me alone.

I shrank then—shrink still—from invading the innermost sanctuary of her heart, and laying it open to others, as I have laid open my own.

“Who cares for his causes of complaint? Are you to break your heart to set his mind at ease? No man under heaven deserves these sacrifices from us women. Men! They are the enemies of our innocence and our peace—

He was big enough to carry typhus by the ton, and to dye the very carpet he walked on with scarlet fever.

Is there any wilderness of sand in the deserts of Arabia, is there any prospect of desolation among the ruins of Palestine, which can rival the repelling effect on the eye, and the depressing influence on the mind, of an English country town in the first stage of its existence, and in the transition state of its prosperity?

The Woman in White quotes

Join the club