{"product_id":"2940013846623","title":"THE WOMAN IN WHITE (Nook Bestseller Edition) BY WILKIE COLLINS Worldwide Bestseller THE WOMAN IN WHITE by Wilkie Collins (Author of the Moonstone, Armadale, No Name Inspiration for Charles Dickens, Sherlock Holmes) COMPLETE UNABRIDGED SPECIAL EDITION","description":"THE WOMAN IN WHITE \u003cbr\u003e(Nook Bestseller Edition) \u003cbr\u003eBY WILKIE COLLINS \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWorldwide Bestseller \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eTHE WOMAN IN WHITE \u003cbr\u003eby Wilkie Collins \u003cbr\u003e(Author of the Moonstone, Armadale, No Name | Inspiration for Charles Dickens, Sherlock Holmes) \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eCOMPLETE UNABRIDGED SPECIAL EDITION\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe Woman in White is an epistolary novel. It is considered to be among the first mystery novels and is widely regarded as one of the first (and finest) in the genre of 'sensation novels'.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe story is considered an early example of detective fiction with the hero, Walter Hartright, employing many of the sleuthing techniques of later private detectives. The use of multiple narratives draws on Collins's legal training and as he points out in his Preamble: 'the story here presented will be told by more than one pen, as the story of an offence against the laws is told in Court by more than one witness'.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eEXCERPT\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"The heat had been painfully oppressive all day, and it was now a close and sultry night.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMy mother and sister had spoken so many last words, and had begged me to wait another five minutes so many times, that it was nearly midnight when the servant locked the garden-gate behind me. I walked forward a few paces on the shortest way back to London, then stopped and hesitated.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe moon was full and broad in the dark blue starless sky, and the broken ground of the heath looked wild enough in the mysterious light to be hundreds of miles away from the great city that lay beneath it. The idea of descending any sooner than I could help into the heat and gloom of London repelled me. The prospect of going to bed in my airless chambers, and the prospect of gradual suffocation, seemed, in my present restless frame of mind and body, to be one and the same thing. I determined to stroll home in the purer air by the most roundabout way I could take; to follow the white winding paths across the lonely heath; and to approach London through its most open suburb by striking into the Finchley Road, and so getting back, in the cool of the new morning, by the western side of the Regent's Park.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI wound my way down slowly over the heath, enjoying the divine stillness of the scene, and admiring the soft alternations of light and shade as they followed each other over the broken ground on every side of me. So long as I was proceeding through this first and prettiest part of my night walk my mind remained passively open to the impressions produced by the view; and I thought but little on any subject—indeed, so far as my own sensations were concerned, I can hardly say that I thought at all.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBut when I had left the heath and had turned into the by-road, where there was less to see, the ideas naturally engendered by the approaching change in my habits and occupations gradually drew more and more of my attention exclusively to themselves. By the time I had arrived at the end of the road I had become completely absorbed in my own fanciful visions of Limmeridge House, of Mr. Fairlie, and of the two ladies whose practice in the art of water-colour painting I was so soon to superintend.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI had now arrived at that particular point of my walk where four roads met—the road to Hampstead, along which I had returned, the road to Finchley, the road to West End, and the road back to London. I had mechanically turned in this latter direction, and was strolling along the lonely high-road—idly wondering, I remember, what the Cumberland young ladies would look like—when, in one moment, every drop of blood in my body was brought to a stop by the touch of a hand laid lightly and suddenly on my shoulder from behind me.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI turned on the instant, with my fingers tightening round the handle of my stick.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThere, in the middle of the broad bright high-road—there, as if it had that moment sprung out of the earth or dropped from the heaven—stood the figure of a solitary Woman, dressed from head to foot in white garments, her face bent in grave inquiry on mine, her hand pointing to the dark cloud over London, as I faced her.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI was far too seriously startled by the suddenness with which this extraordinary apparition stood before me, in the dead of night and in that lonely place, to ask what she wanted. The strange woman spoke first.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Is that the road to London?\" she said.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI looked attentively at her, as she put that singular question to me. It was then nearly one o'clock. All I could discern distinctly by the moonlight was a colourless, youthful face, meagre and sharp to look at about the cheeks and chin; large, grave, wistfully attentive eyes; nervous, uncertain lips; and light hair of a pale, brownish-yellow hue. There was nothing wild, nothing immodest in her manner: it was quiet and self-controlled, a little melancholy and a little touched by suspicion; not exactly the manner of a lady ...\"","brand":"Wilkie Collins Greatest Works","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47079732838640,"sku":"2940013846623","price":2.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0737\/7593\/9824\/files\/2940013846623_p0.jpg?v=1763595443","url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/2940013846623","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}