--- description: Find out why 'The Woman in White' by Wilkie Collins made the list. title: The Woman in White: The 100 Best Mystery and Thriller Books image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt96eb230efa776556/698a4085cabb1d24c9e51c67/TheWomanInWhite.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 --- Oct 03, 2023 # The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins by [TIME Staff](/author/time-staff/) ## TIME Staff Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close  Serialized in 1859 and published as a complete work in 1860, Wilkie Collins’ _The Woman in White_ catapulted the English writer’s career to new—and lucrative—heights during his lifetime, making his work the talk of middle-class Victorian society. The epistolary novel, which was published in Charles Dickens’s journal _All The Year Round_, follows multiple narrators to [fictionalize a true case](https://time.com/5355643/best-true-crime-books-of-all-time/ "undefined") that Collins found in a French crime book called _Recueil des Causes Celebres_. In _The Woman in White_, Frederick Fairlie is a well-to-do hypochondriac who hires Walter Hartright to tutor his niece and heiress, Laura Fairlie, as well as her half-sister Marian Halcombe. Hartright and Laura develop feelings for each other, but she honors her father’s wishes and marries her betrothed, Sir Percival Glyde, a dislikable figure with questionable motives. The titular character comes in the form of the mysterious Anne Catherick, a falsely imprisoned woman who has escaped from an institution and knows a secret that could disrupt Glyde’s plans. When Laura is drugged and committed to the asylum as Anne, Hartright takes on the role of a detective, turning to sleuthing techniques to prove Laura’s identity and uncover what Glyde is hiding. --- ### More from TIME --- With its use of melodrama and domestic realism, the novel helped to pioneer the genre of sensation fiction. It also put a new twist on the tropes of gothic romance while serving as an early iteration of a detective novel. Two months into its serialization, Dickens called the story “masterly,” and to this day, the book is widely regarded as a classic. —_Armani Syed_ **Buy Now:** _The Woman in White_ on [Bookshop](https://bookshop.org/a/4973/9780141439617 "undefined") | [Amazon](https://amzn.to/3Q0q1PY "undefined") ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"Article","@id":"https://time.com/collections/best-mystery-thriller-books/6309153/the-woman-in-white/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/collections/best-mystery-thriller-books/6309153/the-woman-in-white/"},"headline":"The Woman in White","datePublished":"2023-10-03T11:50:14.000Z","dateModified":"2026-03-03T00:20:28.742Z","description":"","url":"https://time.com/collections/best-mystery-thriller-books/6309153/the-woman-in-white/","keywords":["Books"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt96eb230efa776556/698a4085cabb1d24c9e51c67/TheWomanInWhite.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"TIME Staff","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/time-staff/"}],"creator":"TIME Staff","articleSection":"","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt96eb230efa776556/698a4085cabb1d24c9e51c67/TheWomanInWhite.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/collections/best-mystery-thriller-books/6309153/the-woman-in-white/","name":"The Woman in White"}}]},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"VideoObject","name":"How We Chose the 100 Best Mystery and Thriller Books of All Time","description":"Here's how TIME created its 100 Best Mystery and Thriller Books list. There are books from 15 different countries, and no author appears on the list more than once.","thumbnailUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/bNzuDcsg/poster.jpg?width=720","uploadDate":"2023-10-02T16:54:39.000Z","contentUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/bNzuDcsg.m3u8","embedUrl":"https://time.com/collections/best-mystery-thriller-books/6309153/the-woman-in-white/","duration":"PT1M35S","potentialAction":{"@type":"SeekToAction","target":"https://time.com/collections/best-mystery-thriller-books/6309153/the-woman-in-white/?jw_start={seek_to_second_number}","startOffset-input":"required name=seek_to_second_number"}}] ```