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Start giftingThe Woman in White
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Learn moreToby Stephens and Juliet Aubrey star in a BBC Radio 4 full-cast dramatisation of Wilkie Collins’ chilling Gothic drama
A lonely stretch of road on Hampstead Heath is the venue for Walter Hartright’s midnight first encounter with a mysteriously distressed figure in white. As he helps the woman to escape from unnamed pursuers, he has little understanding of the way she will affect his future.
At Limmeridge House, in Cumberland, Walter meets and falls in love with Laura, who strangely resembles the woman in white. She, however, is soon to marry the financially embarrassed Sir Percival Glyde. Events at Limmeridge take a surprising turn when Anne Catherick arrives, and Walter recognises her as the mystery figure.
It appears that Anne’s recent incarceration in a mental asylum was at the behest of Sir Percival, who is all too aware of the secret she holds. More than one life will be lost before Walter’s mystery of the woman in white can be fully explained.
A strong cast brings Wilkie Collins’ tale to life in this BBC Radio 4 production, recorded on location at Beacon Hill, London in 2001
Wilkie Collins was born in 1824 in London, the son of the landscape painter William Collins. He was educated at private schools in London and travelled in Italy for two years with his family.
In 1846 he was called to the bar, but his real interest lay in writing. His first book, a memoir of his father published in 1848, was followed by a historical novel, Antonia: or, The Fall of Rome (1850), and Rambles Beyond Railways (1851) which detailed a walking tour in Cornwall.
In 1851 Collins met Charles Dickens and began contributing to his literature periodicals, Household Words and All the Year Round. Together they wrote two melodramas, The Lighthouse (1855) and The Frozen Deep (1857). Collins’ own work consisted mainly of short stories and novels; these included Hide and Seek (1854), The Dead Secret (1857), The Woman in White (1860), Armadale (1866) and The Moonstone (1868). The 1860s saw him hone his craft as a master of suspense and mystery.
Although Collins’ popularity remained high for the duration of his writing career, critically his later works were thought to be inferior. He was dogged by ill health towards the end of his life and was reportedly addicted to opium. He died in 1889 and his last novel, Blind Love (1890) was posthumously completed by Walter Besant.