Faith Moore (0:00)

Hello and welcome to Storytime for Grown Ups. I'm Faith Moore and this season we're reading the Woman in White by Wilkie Collins. Each episode I'll read a few chapters from the book, pausing from time to time to give brief explanations so it's easier to follow along. It's like an audiobook with built in notes. So brew a pot of tea, find a cozy chair and settle in. It's story time. Hello. Welcome back. Happy New Year. I'm so excited to be back with you. I hope you all had a lovely holiday and I'm thrilled to be back with you. You know, usually January feels good. Kind of like a letdown, right? Right. Christmas is over. I'm home from visiting family. There are still so many more months of winter. How is that possible? Right? But there are. But I'm actually really excited this year because I absolutely cannot wait to start this new book with you. I've been waiting and waiting and it's finally here. I've been looking forward to it so much and it has kind of lessened the holiday letdown for me. So thank you, thank you for that. Thank you for being here with me and giving me something to be excited for in January. This is also the one year anniversary of Storytime for Grown Ups. We began last January with Jane Eyre and here we are in January again and we're going to be reading the Woman in White by Wilkie Collins. You know, those of you who've been here from the beginning know that Jane Eyre is my all time favorite book and that's what we started with. The Woman in White is legitimately my second favorite book of all time. I love this book so much and I absolutely cannot wait to share it with you. If you missed the other books we've done so far, if you're just joining us for the first time, first of all, welcome. I'm so glad to have you here. But also you can find those other books, Jane Eyre, Pride and Prejudice and A Christmas Carol. You can find those episodes in your podcast feed. They're all still there. So you can listen to those books along with this one if you're interested. Some people like to listen to the books they missed on the days when there aren't any new episodes. So new episodes drop Mondays and Thursdays. And some people listen to one of the other books on the off days, but you do you whether or not you choose to listen to the other books, I'm thrilled that you're here for the Woman in White. So before we go too much further let's just take care of a couple of housekeeping things. So this episode is our introduction to the book. We are not going to be reading any of the book today. The actual read aloud will begin on Monday. And I do this every time, these kind of introductory episodes just to give you a little bit of historical context and a little bit of biographical information about the author to kind of set you up for success when we start the book. But I'm not going to do too much. If you've been here for a while, you've already heard me say this before. But just in case you're new or in case you forgot, I really feel like you can get kind of bogged down by too much background information. You know, when someone tells you what to quote, unquote, look out for, and kind of front loads the book with themes and ideas and details to pick up on, the book starts to feel like an exam of some kind. It starts to feel like you're meant to be looking for clues in the text and pulling out these otherwise hidden elements that you didn't know were there. And that kind of deconstructs the story in a way that is not at all conducive to actually just enjoying it. Or if you can't find these supposed themes or details, then you might feel like you're not understanding the book properly and that there are all of these hidden things in there that you're not seeing. And therefore this book isn't for you. And that's awful, right? In my opinion, the only reason to discuss a book and its themes and ideas is to become more immersed in the world of the book. You know, I've said this lots of times before, but I'll say it again, again, because it's important. A book is a world that you get to visit and it's populated with people that you get to meet. Reading a book is like walking around in that world and hanging out with those people. And sometimes we think, well, yeah, that might be true for a modern novel, but classics, those are weighty and they're deep and they need to be analyzed. But no, okay, classics are classics because they are the greatest stories, the greatest worlds populated by the greatest characters. And analyzing them to death is truly a crime. Okay, so my only goal ever in reading these books to you is to invite you into these worlds and to introduce you to these characters so that you can love these books. And that's what we're going to be talking about as we go along. So this is the introduction episode, and then as I say on Monday we'll begin with the book. So the format of the show is that we talk a little bit here at the beginning. I do a recap of the chapters that we read last time and then I read a question or a comment from you and I discuss it a little bit as a way to talk about the book, kind of clarifying anything that was confusing. Or we might talk about things that are really juicy and interesting or in this book may be dastardly and intriguing. Right? And then I read aloud from the book and I pause from time to time to explain things that might be tricky. I do it very briefly. I never want to interrupt the flow of the story. I never analyze or talk about themes and ideas during that part, during the intro part. That's just for the introduction. And I only say, oh, you know, this word means this or this is what just happened or whatever. And that's how it's going to go starting on Monday. So I'll say this again on Monday because it'll be more relevant then. But the way to get in touch with me to ask those questions or make those comments. And please do get in touch even after this episode as well, because I'd love to hear what you think about this introduction and whether you've read this book before or even heard of it, whether you're excited about it or disappointed or whatever. I want to hear from you. So to get in touch, you go to my website, which is faithkmoore.com and then you click on Contact or you can just scroll down into the show Notes, which is here in the podcast player. Wherever you're listening, you scroll down and then there's the description of this episode and there's a link there to that same contact page. You can also find me on X. I'm aithkmore and you can send me a DM or tag me in a post or reply to one of my posts. I see all of that. So please do get in touch. I'm always saying this, but I really love to hear from you. You're never bothering me. So please do get in touch if you have question or comments that you'd like to ask about the book or even about this intro episode. A couple other quick things to let you know about. We have a merch store now, which is so exciting. I used to talk about a merch store as if it were a sort of far off dream of mine and now it's actually here. I can't believe it. I'm so excited about it. I'M working with an amazing designer named Cynthia Angulo, and she's creating some really wonderful artwork for us. There are shirts of various varieties, mugs, travel mugs, baby clothes. There's all kinds of cool things there that you can get this artwork on. Currently, there are a few designs to choose from. There's a Storytime logo, which is very cool, and we're going to be adding more art as we go. My plan is to have something for each book we do, and then I'm going to add a few other things as we go along as well. So there's a link in the show notes. Again, that same description of this episode in your podcast player. There's a link there to the Merch store and I do hope that you'll check that out. And then if you get something and you happen to be on X, take a picture of yourself with whatever you bought and tag me because I really would love to see what you got. It would make me really excited and happy to see that. So I hope that you'll do that. The whole reason that I was able to get the Merch Store up and running, by the way, is because of donations from you, right? I was able to use the funds from my donation page to set up the store, and I have lots of other things I'd love to do as well. So if you are enjoying the show and you're financially able, there is also a link in the show notes to my donation page. It's a page called Buy me a Coffee, but I have changed it to say Buy me a tea because that's much more my vibe. So you would be buying me a tea. You can give as much or as little as you choose, and I use that money to create more things for the show. But also when the show generates income, I'm able to spend more time on it as opposed to on other things, and that's how I can make it grow. So it is in no way an obligation. You are welcome here whether you donate every episode or whether you never donate. I'm seriously thrilled to have you here, really, truly. But if you're able, I would be very grateful. Okay, enough of that. Let's move on to Talking a bit about the Woman in White by Wilkie Collins. So I was first introduced to this story via a truly terrible stage musical of it, right? I've said this a bunch of times, but I'll just quickly say it again in case you're new. I often come to the classics via something else, like a movie or a play or A musical, a modern retelling, whatever it is. And that's because I struggle with reading, and I always have. So it helps me to find another way in that I can use as a kind of stepping stone to the actual book. So Andrew Lloyd Webber, like the guy who did Phantom of the Opera and Cats and everything, Andrew Lloyd Webber did a musical many years ago of this book, the Woman in White. And seriously, this show was so bad. It was terrible. And my husband and I sat through the whole thing cringing. And when it was over, we both turned to each other and said, wow, that was awful. But I immediately knew that I had to read the book it was based on, because even though the musical was truly atrocious, I could see that the story, the plot that the musical was based on was a work of genius. And I had to know what it was. I had to read it, and I had to find out what this story was meant to be like, because it obviously was not meant to be like whatever that was that had just watched on the stage. So I went to the Strand Bookstore, which is this huge bookstore here in New York City where I live, and I picked up a copy of the Woman in White by Wilkie Collins for $2.95, and I read it, and, oh, my gosh, this book is brilliant. I fell in love with it, and it is now, like I said, it's my second favorite book ever after Jane Eyre. And I really hope that you're gonna fall in love with it, too, if for no other reason than then I'll have somebody to talk to about it because it's so good. Okay, so the Woman in White was written. So just to situate us amongst the other books we've read so far. Pride and Prejudice was published in 1813, A Christmas Carol was published in 1843, and Jane Eyre was published in 1847. So this book was published a little over a decade after Jane Eyre and a little less than 20 years after a Christmas Carol. The book actually takes place from 1849-50, so about 10 years before it was actually written. But either way, it's still squarely within the Victorian period, which began in 1837 and ended in 1901. So the world of Jane Eyre or the world of A Christmas Carol is still basically comparable to the world of the Woman in White. You know, one of the goals that I have for this podcast is that after listening to a few books with me, you might be able to go off on your own and read other books that we won't be reading together that maybe felt daunting to you before, because now you'll have some historical context and some of the words and ideas and things from the books that we do together to carry with you into other books. And that's going to start to happen even here as well. You will recognize words and customs and historical details in this book that we encountered in Jane Eyre or in A Christmas Carol or even in Pride and Prejudice, though that one is about a generation before this one. So the Woman in White is what's called a sensation novel. This is a type of book that was very popular in the 1860s when this book was written. And this book, the Woman in White, is now considered to be one of the prime examples of this genre. So what is it? Okay. A sensation novel is a book that features shocking events taking place in everyday settings. And when I say shocking, I mean, like, things that otherwise wouldn't be happening in, say, your living room. Like a murder, for example, or a kidnapping or something like that. And there is sometimes the hint of the supernatural or the uncanny in a sensation novel, but not always. This kind of story has ties to the gothic. Right. Remember, we talked about gothic novels when we were reading Jane Eyre? So you can go back and listen to that if you're interested. But instead of taking place, unlike the wild moors or in an old ruined house like gothic novels do, sensation novels take place in domestic settings which would have seemed very normal and very comfortable at the time. So places like people's homes, places of work, a normal town, that kind of thing. So basically, sensation novels are often thought of as the precursor to the modern thriller. Right? There's usually an element of suspense and danger. There might be psychological twists and turns. There's usually some kind of mystery or a mysterious situation that needs to be unraveled somehow. What you're not gonna get is anything overtly gory or anything graphically sexual or anything truly horrifically disturbing. Those are things that you might find in a modern thriller, but you're not going to find them in a sensation novel. A sensation novel is more like a melodrama, like a big, sweeping, suspenseful, exciting, often romantic story. And because of that, I want to be extra careful about spoilers. Right? You all know how I feel about spoilers. And if you don't, it's that I hate them. And I particularly don't want to do any spoilers for a story that has mysterious elements to it. So I'm not going to say anything more than this about the plot, but I do think that it can Be useful to know what kind of story story you're in for when you start reading something new. So that's why I'm telling you about this, about the sensation novel and what it is. The other piece of this is that detective novels, right, the way that we understand them now kind of mystery stories essentially where a detective tracks down clues and eventually finds the answer to a question that's been asked at the beginning. Detective novels basically hadn't been invented yet when this book was written in 1841. So about 20 years before the Woman in White came out, Edgar Allan Poe had written a short story called the Murderers in the Room Morgue, which is usually considered to be the first piece of detective writing ever done. It's the first time a writer uses the character of like a brilliant detective tracking down clues to solve a murder. But when Wilkie Collins was writing the Woman in White, there hadn't been any novel length stories written in that format. And the genre as we know it had yet to come into existence. Distance in 1868. So eight years after the Woman in White, Wilkie Collins would publish a book called the Moonstone, which is usually credited with being the first detective novel ever written. Although there is another book called the Notting Hill Mystery, which came out in 1862, that might get to claim that title, but usually doesn't. So the Moonstone is usually credited as being the first detective novel, and that is also by Wilkie Collins, who wrote the Woman in White. All of this is to say that at the time that the Woman in White was published, no one had ever written a detective novel and the genre basically didn't exist. So one thing that's really cool about this book, right, one cool thing about many cool things, is that it's essentially the precursor to the detective novel. There are many elements of the detective novel in this book and you can see Collins kind of creating this framework of a mystery and clues and following clues and getting all the facts sorted out and sifting through the facts to get ultimately at the truth. And then of course, later on he would write the Moonstone, which is an actual detective novel. So this book is notable as the precursor to the modern mystery story, a sort of proto mystery, and also as the prime example of the sensation novel, which is the precursor to the modern thriller. So in many ways it's a different sort of book than the kinds of books that we've read so far on this show. But it's also similar in that it has elements of the gothic, also romance. And I don't know, I'm just telling you, you guys, this is such a fun book. It's a wild ride, and we're going to have a blast reading it. So Wilkie Collins, who was he? He was born in 1824, and he lived until 1889. His father was a painter. And that's important because you're going to see Wilkie Collins's knowledge of painting come up in the Woman in White. He was English, so he was born in England, and he grew up in England, Italy and France. And he spoke Italian and French as well as English. And you'll see his connection to Italy and Italian come up in the Woman in White as well. You may be wondering what sort of a name Wilkie is, because I was. So I looked it up. It turns out that his actual name is William, which was his father's name. So he was named after his father, but his middle name was Wilkie as a tribute to his godfather, who was the painter David Wilkie. And somewhere along the line, he began using his middle name. So his name to everyone who knew him was Wilkie. Early in his career, Collins met Charles Dickens, and the two became lifelong friends. Dickens was older than Collins, so he was kind of like a mentor figure to him. And Collins wrote for Dickens magazines. And the Woman in White was first published serially in Dickens's magazine all the year round. Serially just means that it was put out in installments. So each time the magazine came out, people would get the next part of the story. So actually, it's more like what we're doing here on this show than maybe how you might have experienced it if he had published it all at once, because you would have had to wait a set period of time before getting the next part of the story, just like you have to wait for the next part of the story on this show. So that's kind of neat. Collins himself was. He was plagued by gout, which is a disease that causes painful swelling in the joints, particularly in the feet. And so he had these periods where it would flare up and he would have to kind of cancel everything and go to bed and wait for it to get better. And so because of this, he took opium for the pain. And then in the last decade or so of his life, he became addicted to the opium, and that caused his writing and his quality of life to kind of suffer. And it tailed off. But initially he was very prolific. He wrote stories as well as novels and also plays. So it was only in the latter part of his life that his gout and his Opium addiction really affected the quality of his work. Another kind of interesting thing to note about Collins was that he was against the institution of marriage, as it was in his time in Victorian England. He felt that it was oppressive to women because it stripped them of their rights and it caused them to be kind of beholden to their husbands for everything. And he advocated for new laws that would make marriage more equal for women. And he championed women's rights more generally and believed that women were more capable than Victorian laws and social customs dictated. And you're going to see him working through these ideas somewhat in the Woman in White, but he also felt that marriage was a trap for men, and he resolved to never marry. And instead, he had a kind of long, lifelong liaison with a widow named Caroline Graves, and he lived with her in London for over 30 years, and he treated her daughter as his own. It was the kind of situation that maybe today no one would bat an eyelid at because they were living together. He was essentially the stepfather to Mrs. Graves daughter. And we might kind of consider them today to be as good as married. But this would have been considered very scandalous, particularly for Mrs. Graves, because sex of wedlock was still very much unacceptable. And living with someone as if you were married but not actually being married was also considered unacceptable, even though we in modern times might be able to forgive him for this arrangement. Except that Collins eventually took up with another woman in addition to Caroline Graves, who was much younger than he was and might have initially been his mother's maid. He set her up in a house that was an easy walk from Mrs. Graves's house, and he ended up having three children with her, all while still in a relationship with Mrs. Graves. So not actually the most moral sort of guy when it comes to his romantic relationships, even by modern standards. Some of these feelings about marriage come up in the Woman in White, as do his feelings about women's rights. But they come up in a really interesting way that doesn't at all champion, like, immorality or adultery or anything like that. And it's going to be really interesting, I think, to unpack the various ways that all these ideas come together into a really masterful and suspenseful story. So Collins died in 1889 following a stroke, and he had been very famous in his lifetime, and many of his books, including the Woman in White, had been bestsellers. But he has been kind of largely overshadowed by his friend Charles Dickens, because I think his books, Dickens books, are in some ways more modern than Collins's. Right. The genre of the sensation novel hasn't really carried over into modern day, or it is sort of morphed and changed into the thriller or the mystery story. And some sensation novels or stories from that time period might feel sort of melodramatic or hokey to us. And this one, the Woman in White, it does have some of that, but it's all done so well that the melodrama becomes kind of part of the fun of the book. This is a fun book, right? Even as it's suspenseful and mysterious and exciting. And the fun to me comes from the ways in which it is a bit over the top. So even though it may have faded a bit into obscurity in the way that Charles Dickens books absolutely have not, this book is still a classic and it's still notable for being the precursor to the thriller, the precursor to the detective novel. And also it's just a rip roaring good time. So it's well worth the read. So let's stop there. As I say, I never want to give too much information and please know that none of what I've said today was said. So that you're gonna now scour the book looking for clues to, like Wilkie Collins's views on marriage or whatever. I just think it's sometimes helpful to situate yourself in the time period and the genre and to know just a little bit about who the author was. It gives you something to kind of hang on to as you embark on this journey. But there is no quiz, there's no final paper. I will never use any of this stuff that I've said today as a way to kind of analyze the book or make you feel like there's some hidden meaning there that you're just not seeing. Our job is to experience this story. Our job is to take a trip into the world of the Woman in White, to walk around in there to meet these truly fantastic characters and follow their story for a while. And the only thing I'm going to want to talk about while we do that is how the story resonates with us and what relevance it might have still for us today. So we'll be back on Monday and we will get started with the book. You'll see once we get started that the book isn't exactly divided into chapters. And there's a reason reason for that, which will be explained at the beginning. So I've divided the book up into reasonable chunks and I'll always tell you at the start of each episode what we'll be reading that day. So we'll get started with the first reasonable chunk on Monday. I absolutely cannot wait to dive in. So don't forget to write to me, right? Tell me your thoughts or ask me your questions about the things we've discussed today. And if you haven't already, write in to tell me how you're feeling about this book as our next selection. So go to faithkeymoore.com and click on Contact. Or just scroll down and click on the link in the Show Notes. Notes. I would absolutely love to hear from you. All right, thanks so much for being here. I'll see you on Monday as we begin the Woman in White by Wilkie Collins. See you then. Thank you so much for listening. I'd love to know what you thought of the chapters. Is there anything you'd like me to clarify? Did something particularly interest you? Please go to my website, faithkmoor.com, click on Contact and send me your questions and thoughts. Or you can click on the link in the Show Notes to contact me. I'll feature one or two of your entries at the start of the next episode. Speaking of links, don't forget to take a look at the other links in the Show Notes. You can learn more about me, check out our merch store or pick up one of my books. Before I go, I'd like to ask a quick favorite. This is an independent podcast. It's produced, recorded and marketed by me, so I need your help. Spread the word about the show by posting about it on social media or texting a link to your friends. Subscribe, tap those five stars and leave a positive review wherever you're listening. If you are able to support the show financially, there's a link in the Show Notes to make a donation. I would really, really appreciate it it all right, everyone, story time is over. To be continued.