Criricism of Wilkie Collins’ Woman in White Essay

Criricism of Wilkie Collins’ Woman in White â€Å"To Mr. Collins belongs the credit of having introduced into fiction those most mysterious of mysteries, the mysteries which are at our own doors.† So said Henry James in an unsigned review of another author’s work. But his view was certainly not shared by all those who cast their opinions into the fray. An unsigned review in the Saturday Review said of Collins’ work, â€Å"Estimated by the standard of great novels, the Woman in White is nowhere. Somewhere between these two points are friends and correspondents of Mr. Wilkie Collins. Novelist George Meredith wrote to Collins himself saying, â€Å"The tension of the W[oman] in W[hite] is not exactly pleasant, though cleverly produced. One wearies of†¦show more content†¦Another is a good-natured family lawyer of the old school. A third is a brave and determined lady.† Playing on Collins’ own comparisons to a court trial this reviewer wrote, â€Å"They are not staring at the spectators , or, if they are, they are staring listlessly and vacantly, like witnesses who are waiting to be called before the court, and have nothing to do until their turn arrives.† Of course many positive critiques of the novel existed. One was written as a direct reaction to the Saturday Review piece. This anonymous reviewer of the Spectator cried out , â€Å"The vivid and manifold emotions with which we read her story are still fresh in our memory, and we retain a lively sense of the personality of every actor in it from Marian and Laura down to the old parish clerk. Yet we are told that the author `does not attempt to paint character or passion. He is not in the least imaginative!’ Mashallah!† This critic ends his or her review stating, â€Å"To sneer at the best thing of its kind because it is not something else is a convenient mode of detraction, and, when done with assurance and a certain degree of literary tact, it may pass with the unwary for authoritative criticism; but it seems a pitiful thing after all when once the trick of it has been discovered.† And once again a middle road emerged from between the two extreme views. An unsigned in The Times praised Collins, but with restraint. â€Å"We must be content to ask, in the name of