First English edition, later issue, with correction of Guardian error to p.203 of vol. iii, and faint erasure remnants of edition statement to title pages. Post 8vo. 3 vols. Pp. viii, 316; [ii], 360; [ii], 368. 1/2 brown morocco over marbled boards, spine gilt tooled in compartments with raised bands and leather labels. Published without half titles and this set sans the 16pp. publisher's catalogue, dated Aug 1, 1860 to rear of vol. iii; new endpapers. Preface dated August 3, 1860.
A minor sequential discontinuity first noted in the August 29, 1860 review of The Guardian, and corrected by the book's so-called second edition of 15 September, a fortnight later, makes this set one of the issues published between 15 September and 1 November 1860. Distinguished bookplates of H.M. Clifford, a British Army Royal Engineers officer who served throughout the Empire between 1914 and 1948 and was knighted for his services in 1935. Old tape remnants in gutter of pp. 192/193, vol. i, occasional foxing, else near fine.
Author's fifth published novel, it was begun on 15 August 1859 at the seaside resort of Broadstairs, Kent, and completed on July 26th 1860 at his rented rooms at 12 Harley Street, London. The English edition was published on or about 15 August 1860, priced at 31s 6d, as stated by Sampson Low in its 'List of Books for the month of August' in The Publishers' Circular of 1 August 1860, and contrary to Sadleir's assertion that the American edition precedes it by a month. In fact, the single volume Harper & Brothers US edition appeared no earlier than 30 August 1860 (adverts on which date by Harper's in both The New York Times and The World announce the book as 'Published this day'). Furthermore, in a letter to his mother, dated 22 August, 1860, Collins asserted that 'the whole of the first impression... sold on the day of publication'. By 1 November 1860, when the last 3 vol. issue was published, the so-called 'New Edition', there had already been seven issues in circulation. The first one-volume edition with the author's revised preface, dated February 1861, was published between 15 April and 1 May 1861, according to The Publishers' Circular of 1 May.
The title was originally serialized in 40 parts in Charles Dickens's weekly, All the Year Round (26 Nov 1859 – 25 Aug 1860), and concurrently in 42 parts in the US magazine Harper's Weekly (26 Nov 1859 – 8 Sep 1860). Textual changes, such as errors of punctuation, spelling and grammar abound between the All the Year Round serial publication and the first English, three-volume edition. A major chronological inconsistency, though, first described in the October 30, 1860 issue of The Times and 'rectified' in the 1861 first one volume edition only served to introduce further inconsistencies, as the novel's parallel narratives are so closely interwoven.
A
Haycraft-Queen mystery fiction cornerstone, and one of the great Victorian novels in any genre,
The Woman in White established Collins's hold as "practically the first English novelist who dealt with the detection of crime" (Harvey,
The Oxford Companion, p. 233). Centring on the theme of stolen identity and the misuse of lunatic asylums, the story is partly based on an eighteenth century case of abduction and wrongful imprisonment, taken from Maurice Méjan's
Recueil des causes célèbres et des arrêts qui les ont décidées (1807). The innovative use of multiple narratives draws on Collins's legal background and as he points out in the novel's 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". Listed at no. 23 by
The Observer in 2003, amongst "the top 100 greatest novels of all time".
[Parrish, pp. 39–40; Sadleir, 605a; Wolff, 1377]