The Woman in White

By: Wilkie Collins

Narrated by: Gabriel Woolf

Length: 24 hrs and 43 mins

Publisher's summary

The Woman in White, considered one of the first mystery novels and is the best known work of English novelist Wilkie Collins.

Late one night, a drawing teacher meets a mysterious woman dressed in white. Who is she, and what is her connection to the teacher's new pupil, a beautiful heiress?

Serialized in 1859 - 1860, and first published in book form in 1860 it is still regarded still as one of the best plots in English literature. Told from multiple perspectives, the story is brought to life by its marvellous villains and complex, spirited and believable female characters.

William Wilkie Collins (1824 - 1889) was an English novelist, playwright, and author of short stories.

Please note: This is a vintage recording. The audio quality may not be up to modern day standards.

Public Domain (P)2009 RNIB

Not the Wilkie Collins of Drood

I came across Wilkie Collins in the recent novel Drood. He was a contemporary of Charles Dickens and collaborated with Dickens in several plays and stories. The plot of The Woman in White rivals the complexity of Dickens' novel Our Mutual Friend but the action is overly confined to the drawing room for my taste. The story lacks life and seems dated

Great Story, not the best production

I am really enjoying the story, and the reader does a great job bringing the characters to life. But the defects in the production keep pulling me out of the story and ruining my enjoyment--I can hear someone talking in the background at times, the reader bumps against the mike or something (thump), I can hear pages occasionally being turned. Sheesh. Some of the pauses are way too long. And sometimes the reader flubs a word and then corrects himself. Basically, this reading needed a little more quality-control.

taking dullness to a new level

This is one of the greatest ripping yarns in print, but the reader manages to turn it a total yawn . He does a great job with the occasional characterisations (eg Pesca etc) but as a lot of the novel is written as the recollections of one man, there is SO LITTLE VARIATION IN TONE and the reader is SO lackadaisical, making mistakes with the text and even syntax on occasion. Do yourself a favour and either read the thing in print, or get another version. I couldn't finish it, and I ALWAYS finish the books I buy.

I switched to a different narrator and loved it

I started this book with this narrator and found it awful. I kept hearing him inhale, which was very distracting. I did not get into the story at all - the narration just did not engross me. I decided not to give up on the book (I almost did), but to try a different narrator. I'm sure glad I did. So, you can check out my review of a different version of this book.

Poor performance of good material

Gabriel Woolf, who reads this version, does a poor job. It might be fairer to say that he seems to have worked with very poor producers who couldn't be bothered to have him reread certain lines where he says the wrong thing and then corrects himself. All these errors--and there are many--are left in. Why? It would have been so easy to simply flag those moments and either have him reread them immediately or edit it out (as much as possible) after the recording was made.

The book itself is really good. If you're interested in this story, look for another version.