Найти книгу: "Woman in White, The The"

Wilkie Collins' The Woman in White, written in 1859, is considered to be among the first mystery novels and one of the finest examples of the sensation novel, a genre blending realism and gothic romance, and exploring the artificiality of identity. In it, a young protagonist, Walter Hartright, meets a mysterious woman dressed all in white on a London street at midnight. After helping her return home, he learns from police that she has escaped from an asylum. Later, Walter takes a job as an art tutor to two young women, one of whom bears a strong resemblance to the woman in white. Considered to be Collins' finest novel along with The Moonstone.

This spirited account of the exploits of a crew of Saxon archers during the Hundred Years War features cameo appearances by historical figures such as Edward III and the Black Prince. Flavorful and realistic in its depictions of medieval life, the novel combines the excitement of a rugged adventure with the romance of chivalry.

"Dark spruce forest frowned on either side the frozen waterway. The trees had been stripped by a recent wind of their white covering of frost, and they seemed to lean towards each other, black and ominous, in the fading light. A vast silence reigned over the land. The land itself was a desolation, lifeless, without movement, so lone and cold that the spirit of it was not even that of sadness. There was a hint in it of laughter, but of a laughter more terrible than any sadness-a laughter that was mirthless as the smile of the sphinx, a laughter cold as the frost and partaking of the grimness of infallibility. It was the masterful and incommunicable wisdom of eternity laughing at the futility of life and the effort of life. It was the Wild, the savage, frozen-hearted Northland Wild…"