Sensational Victorians: Wilkie Collins' The Woman in White (1860) NEW

 Over six meetings we will read and discuss together one of the most popular--then and now-- of the major Victorian novels--Wilkie Collins' The Woman in White, first published in 1860. Collins' blending of the Gothic novel with the domestic realistic novel led to the vogue for what was then called the "Sensation Novel."  Over the decade of the 1860s he had many imitators but none could surpass this his first and probably best creation. 

The Woman in White is (no surprise) a long novel, a little more than 600 pages. It was originally published in 40 weekly parts in Dickens' magazine All the Year Round.  With only six weeks at our disposal, we will spend two weeks on each of the novel's three parts or Epochs. 
Joe O'Mealy is retired from the English department at UH Manoa where he specialized in Nineteenth century literature with an emphasis on the novel. He has taught more than a dozen different courses for Osher, all different, all about fiction and his favorite writers.