by Wilkie Collins, published in serial form 1859-1860
Walter Hartright runs into the woman in white on a road at night going towards London. She enters his life again while he is teaching painting to 2 young ladies in Fairlie’s Limmeridge House. Walter falls in love with Laura Fairlie, 1/2 sister of Marian Holcombe. But she is betrothed to Sir Percival Glyde. The woman in white tries to warn Laura to not marry him. She does anyway. He’s a scoundrel and once he has her it is clear he wanted her money only.
Percival and Count Fosco hatch a plan to get Laura’s money. They pull it off. The woman in white, Anne Catherick, looks just like Laura. And they convince everyone that Laura died in London. It was really Anne Catherick. Marian loves Laura and finds her committed in an asylum and helps her escape. Walter Hartright returns from S. America and with his good detective skills, gets to the root of all the deceptions of Percival Glyde and Count Fosco. Turns out Percival was illegitimate. He dies trying to destroy the evidence in a church record. He burns to death. Walter Hartright then takes on Count Fosco and ultimately discovers he was a traitor of an Italian secret brotherhood. Walter gets him to write the whole truth down and other evidence he needs. Walter (in the meantime he has married Laura) restores her to her rightful place and they live happily ever after, eventually back in Limmeridge after Uncle Frederick Fairlie, a weak, unhealthy, selfish, spineless man, finally dies.
Count Fosco ends up murdered in Paris by the Italian rotherhood who discover him the same time Walter does. He had disguised himself by becoming extremely fat.
Interesting book. Many fascinating characters.