My first experience with Wilkie Collins' The Woman in White was listening to the soundtrack of its musical adaptation written by Andrew Lloyd Webber. In this way, I was able to familiarize myself with the story, and found it both mysterious and exciting. I purchased the book with the hopes that it would mirror Lloyd Webber's soaring musical, but this was not to be the case. I suppose that I ruined my reading experience by already knowing the mystery's conclusion, but I found the plot to be slow moving and somewhat dull. This is surprising since this novel has been praised as the creator of the new genre of "sensation novels". Perhaps I was thrown off by the constant changing of narrators, each offering their different perspectives on the events occurring at Limmeridge House. Maybe I ignored Collins' character development since I had already made up my mind about which characters I liked and which I didn't. Looking back on it now, I should probably read this again to see if I find it more captivating, but for the moment, I give it a C.
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"I have always maintained that the one important phenomenon presented by modern society is the enormous prosperity of fools." (Wilkie Collins)
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