To Bryan Waller Procter; From one of his younger brethren in literature, who sincerely values his friendship, and who gratefully remembers many happy hours spent in his house....

The Woman in White has been received with such marked favour by a very large circle of readers, that this volume scarcely stands in need of any prefatory introduction on my part. All that it is necess...

This is the story of what a woman’s patience can endure, and what a Man’s resolution can achieve. If the machinery of the Law could be depended on to fathom every case of suspicion, and to conduct eve...

This is the story of what a woman’s patience can endure, and what a Man’s resolution can achieve. If the machinery of the Law could be depended on to fathom every case of suspicion, and to conduct eve...

This is the story of what a woman’s patience can endure, and what a Man’s resolution can achieve. If the machinery of the Law could be depended on to fathom every case of suspicion, and to conduct eve...

It was the last day of July. The long hot summer was drawing to a close; and we, the weary pilgrims of the London pavement, were beginning to think of the cloud-shadows on the cornfields, and the autu...

Pesca’s face and manner, on the evening when we confronted each other at my mother’s gate, were more than sufficient to inform me that something extraordinary had happened. It was quite useless, howev...

The heat had been painfully oppressive all day, and it was now a close and sultry night. My mother and sister had spoken so many last words, and had begged me to wait another five minutes so many time...

“She has escaped from my asylum!” I cannot say with truth that the terrible inference which those words suggested flashed upon me like a new revelation. Some of the strange questions put to me by the ...

When I rose the next morning and drew up my blind, the sea opened before me joyously under the broad August sunlight, and the distant coast of Scotland fringed the horizon with its lines of melting bl...

My conductor led me upstairs into a passage which took us back to the bedchamber in which I had slept during the past night; and opening the door next to it, begged me to look in. “I have my master’s ...

When I entered the room, I found Miss Halcombe and an elderly lady seated at the luncheon-table. The elderly lady, when I was presented to her, proved to be Miss Fairlie’s former governess, Mrs. Vesey...

So ended my eventful first day at Limmeridge House. Miss Halcombe and I kept our secret. After the discovery of the likeness no fresh light seemed destined to break over the mystery of the woman in wh...

It was on a Thursday in the week, and nearly at the end of the third month of my sojourn in Cumberland. In the morning, when I went down into the breakfast-room at the usual hour, Miss Halcombe, for t...

Not a word more was said, on either side, as we walked back to the house. Miss Halcombe hastened immediately to her sister’s room, and I withdrew to my studio to set in order all of Mr. Fairlie’s draw...

Our inquiries at Limmeridge were patiently pursued in all directions, and among all sorts and conditions of people. But nothing came of them. Three of the villagers did certainly assure us that they h...

The exposed situation of the churchyard had obliged me to be cautious in choosing the position that I was to occupy. The main entrance to the church was on the side next to the burial-ground, and the ...

Half an hour later I was back at the house, and was informing Miss Halcombe of all that had happened. She listened to me from beginning to end with a steady, silent attention, which, in a woman of her...

As we walked round to the front of the house a fly from the railway approached us along the drive. Miss Halcombe waited on the doorsteps until the fly drew up, and then advanced to shake hands with an...

I write these lines at the request of my friend, Mr. Walter Hartright. They are intended to convey a description of certain events which seriously affected Miss Fairlie’s interests, and which took pla...

I write these lines at the request of my friend, Mr. Walter Hartright. They are intended to convey a description of certain events which seriously affected Miss Fairlie’s interests, and which took pla...

We all met again at dinnertime. Sir Percival was in such boisterous high spirits that I hardly recognised him as the same man whose quiet tact, refinement, and good sense had impressed me so strongly ...

A week passed, after my return to London, without the receipt of any communication from Miss Halcombe. On the eighth day a letter in her handwriting was placed among the other letters on my table. It ...

Leaving by an early train, I got to Limmeridge in time for dinner. The house was oppressively empty and dull. I had expected that good Mrs. Vesey would have been company for me in the absence of the y...

Limmeridge House, Nov. 8. This morning Mr. Gilmore left us. His interview with Laura had evidently grieved and surprised him more than he liked to confess. I felt afraid, from his look and manner when...

Limmeridge House, Nov. 8. This morning Mr. Gilmore left us. His interview with Laura had evidently grieved and surprised him more than he liked to confess. I felt afraid, from his look and manner when...

Limmeridge House. November 27th.⁠—My forebodings are realised. The marriage is fixed for the twenty-second of December. The day after we left for Polesdean Lodge Sir Percival wrote, it seems, to Mr. F...

Blackwater Park, Hampshire. June 11th, 1850.⁠—Six months to look back on⁠—six long, lonely months since Laura and I last saw each other! How many days have I still to wait? Only one! Tomorrow, the twe...

Blackwater Park, Hampshire. June 11th, 1850.⁠—Six months to look back on⁠—six long, lonely months since Laura and I last saw each other! How many days have I still to wait? Only one! Tomorrow, the twe...

Blackwater Park, Hampshire. June 11th, 1850.⁠—Six months to look back on⁠—six long, lonely months since Laura and I last saw each other! How many days have I still to wait? Only one! Tomorrow, the twe...

June 15th.⁠—The confusion of their arrival has had time to subside. Two days have elapsed since the return of the travellers, and that interval has sufficed to put the new machinery of our lives at Bl...

June 16th.⁠—I have a few lines more to add to this day’s entry before I go to bed tonight. About two hours after Sir Percival rose from the luncheon-table to receive his solicitor, Mr. Merriman, in th...

June 17th.⁠—Just as my hand was on the door of my room, I heard Sir Percival’s voice calling to me from below. “I must beg you to come downstairs again,” he said. “It is Fosco’s fault, Miss Halcombe, ...

June 17th.⁠—When the dinner hour brought us together again, Count Fosco was in his usual excellent spirits. He exerted himself to interest and amuse us, as if he was determined to efface from our memo...

June 18th.⁠—The misery of self-reproach which I suffered yesterday evening, on hearing what Laura told me in the boathouse, returned in the loneliness of the night, and kept me waking and wretched for...

June 19th.⁠—The events of yesterday warned me to be ready, sooner or later, to meet the worst. Today is not yet at an end, and the worst has come. Judging by the closest calculation of time that Laura...

June 19th.⁠—I had only got as far as the top of the stairs when the locking of Laura’s door suggested to me the precaution of also locking my own door, and keeping the key safely about me while I was ...

June 19th.⁠—Once safely shut into my own room, I opened these pages, and prepared to go on with that part of the day’s record which was still left to write. For ten minutes or more I sat idle, with th...

June 20th.⁠—Eight o’clock. The sun is shining in a clear sky. I have not been near my bed⁠—I have not once closed my weary wakeful eyes. From the same window at which I looked out into the darkness of...

It is the grand misfortune of my life that nobody will let me alone. Why⁠—I ask everybody⁠—why worry me? Nobody answers that question, and nobody lets me alone. Relatives, friends, and strangers all c...

I am asked to state plainly what I know of the progress of Miss Halcombe’s illness and of the circumstances under which Lady Glyde left Blackwater Park for London. The reason given for making this dem...

I am asked to state plainly what I know of the progress of Miss Halcombe’s illness and of the circumstances under which Lady Glyde left Blackwater Park for London. The reason given for making this dem...

The next event that occurred was of so singular a nature that it might have caused me a feeling of superstitious surprise, if my mind had not been fortified by principle against any pagan weakness of ...

I am sorry to say that I have never learnt to read or write. I have been a hardworking woman all my life, and have kept a good character. I know that it is a sin and wickedness to say the thing which ...

I am sorry to say that I have never learnt to read or write. I have been a hardworking woman all my life, and have kept a good character. I know that it is a sin and wickedness to say the thing which ...

To the Registrar of the Sub-District in which the undermentioned death took place.⁠—I hereby certify that I attended Lady Glyde, aged Twenty-One last Birthday; that I last saw her on Thursday the 25th...

I was the person sent in by Mr. Goodricke to do what was right and needful by the remains of a lady who had died at the house named in the certificate which precedes this. I found the body in charge o...

Sacred to the Memory of Laura, Lady Glyde, wife of Sir Percival Glyde, Bart., of Blackwater Park, Hampshire, and daughter of the late Philip Fairlie, Esq., of Limmeridge House, in this parish. Born Ma...

Early in the summer of 1850 I and my surviving companions left the wilds and forests of Central America for home. Arrived at the coast, we took ship there for England. The vessel was wrecked in the Gu...

I open a new page. I advance my narrative by one week. The history of the interval which I thus pass over must remain unrecorded. My heart turns faint, my mind sinks in darkness and confusion when I t...

I open a new page. I advance my narrative by one week. The history of the interval which I thus pass over must remain unrecorded. My heart turns faint, my mind sinks in darkness and confusion when I t...

I open a new page. I advance my narrative by one week. The history of the interval which I thus pass over must remain unrecorded. My heart turns faint, my mind sinks in darkness and confusion when I t...

My position is defined⁠—my motives are acknowledged. The story of Marian and the story of Laura must come next. I shall relate both narratives, not in the words (often interrupted, often inevitably co...

This was the story of the past⁠—the story so far as we knew it then. Two obvious conclusions presented themselves to my mind after hearing it. In the first place, I saw darkly what the nature of the c...

No circumstance of the slightest importance happened on my way to the offices of Messrs. Gilmore & Kyrle, in Chancery Lane. While my card was being taken in to Mr. Kyrle, a consideration occurred to m...

The story of my first inquiries in Hampshire is soon told. My early departure from London enabled me to reach Mr. Dawson’s house in the forenoon. Our interview, so far as the object of my visit was co...

The address communicated by Mrs. Todd took me to a lodging-house situated in a respectable street near the Gray’s Inn Road. When I knocked the door was opened by Mrs. Clements herself. She did not app...

Thus far the information which I had received from Mrs. Clements⁠—though it established facts of which I had not previously been aware⁠—was of a preliminary character only. It was clear that the serie...

When I reached home again after my interview with Mrs. Clements, I was struck by the appearance of a change in Laura. The unvarying gentleness and patience which long misfortune had tried so cruelly a...

I left the house, feeling that Mrs. Catherick had helped me a step forward, in spite of herself. Before I had reached the turning which led out of the square, my attention was suddenly aroused by the ...

Once out of sight of the church, I pressed forward briskly on my way to Knowlesbury. The road was, for the most part, straight and level. Whenever I looked back over it I saw the two spies steadily fo...

The inquest was hurried for certain local reasons which weighed with the coroner and the town authorities. It was held on the afternoon of the next day. I was necessarily one among the witnesses summo...

Sir⁠—You have not come back, as you said you would. No matter; I know the news, and I write to tell you so. Did you see anything particular in my face when you left me? I was wondering, in my own mind...

My first impulse, after reading Mrs. Catherick’s extraordinary narrative, was to destroy it. The hardened shameless depravity of the whole composition, from beginning to end⁠—the atrocious perversity ...

My first impulse, after reading Mrs. Catherick’s extraordinary narrative, was to destroy it. The hardened shameless depravity of the whole composition, from beginning to end⁠—the atrocious perversity ...

It was between nine and ten o’clock before I reached Fulham, and found my way to Gower’s Walk. Both Laura and Marian came to the door to let me in. I think we had hardly known how close the tie was wh...

Four months elapsed. April came⁠—the month of spring⁠—the month of change. The course of time had flowed through the interval since the winter peacefully and happily in our new home. I had turned my l...

The course of this narrative, steadily flowing on, bears me away from the morning-time of our married life, and carries me forward to the end. In a fortnight more we three were back in London, and the...

The last notes of the introduction to the opera were being played, and the seats in the pit were all filled, when Pesca and I reached the theatre. There was plenty of room, however, in the passage tha...

My first conviction as soon as I found myself outside the house, was that no alternative was left me but to act at once on the information I had received⁠—to make sure of the Count that night, or to r...

There was no lamp in the hall, but by the dim light of the kitchen candle, which the girl had brought upstairs with her, I saw an elderly lady steal noiselessly out of a back room on the ground floor....

In the summer of eighteen hundred and fifty I arrived in England, charged with a delicate political mission from abroad. Confidential persons were semi-officially connected with me, whose exertions I ...

In the summer of eighteen hundred and fifty I arrived in England, charged with a delicate political mission from abroad. Confidential persons were semi-officially connected with me, whose exertions I ...

When I closed the last leaf of the Count’s manuscript the half-hour during which I had engaged to remain at Forest Road had expired. Monsieur Rubelle looked at his watch and bowed. I rose immediately,...

When I closed the last leaf of the Count’s manuscript the half-hour during which I had engaged to remain at Forest Road had expired. Monsieur Rubelle looked at his watch and bowed. I rose immediately,...

Two more events remain to be added to the chain before it reaches fairly from the outset of the story to the close. While our new sense of freedom from the long oppression of the past was still strang...

The summer and autumn passed after my return from Paris, and brought no changes with them which need be noticed here. We lived so simply and quietly that the income which I was now steadily earning su...

The passages omitted, here and elsewhere, in Miss Halcombe’s diary are only those which bear no reference to Miss Fairlie or to any of the persons with whom she is associated in these pages. ↩ The man...