Wilkie Collins "The Woman in White"
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Wilkie Collins
She appears out of nowhere, a woman dressed all in white, standing in the moonlight on the lonely heath. Walter Hartright is at first alarmed, bur then sees that she is frightened and confused, and needs his help. He speaks kindly to her, walks with her to show her the right road, and soon she disappears into the night again.
This strange meeting begins a chain of events that bring together Walter, Marian and her half-sister Laura, Sir Percival and his Italian friend Count Fosco in a mystery in which nothing is as it seems. And at the heart of the mystery is the sad, lonely figure of the woman in white -her life, her history, and the secret that she is desperate to reveal before she dies.
It is a story of greed and evil, innocence and betrayal, confused identities and cruel deceptions. And also love -a love that begins with heartbreak and misery, where there seems 110 way forward, no hope for the future. But love does not die easily; it can survive separation, and despair, and even death itself...
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Text Analysis: Unique words: about 2,500. Total words: about 31,950
Hard words: asylum, bail, Baronet, bless, cab, capital, cloak, Count, Countess, feature, footprint, footsteps, gentleman, gloomy, governess, guardian, hood, housekeeper, identity, Lady, loan, lodgings, magistrate, mental, morgue, nerves, nobleman, nudge, opera, post-bag, rank, register, rustle, scar, shiver, sketch, typhus, veil, verandah, vestry
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