Here Collins wrote in a new preface ‘Certain technical errors which had escaped me while I was writing the book are here rectified.’ The main correction involved putting back the relevant dates by sixteen days so that Miss Halcombe’s Diary at Blackwater Park, for example, commences on 11 June instead of 27 June. I will call in Ludgate Hill the moment I get back.’ Despite this stated intention, the book, which according to The Times review, was already in its third edition, was not revised in this particular respect until the first one volume edition in 1861. Nevertheless we will set the mistake right at the first opportunity.
And readers are not critics, who test an emotional book by the base rules of arithmetic – which is a second consolation.
The critic in the Times is (between ourselves) right about the mistake in time.3 Shakespear has made worse mistakes – that is one comfort. Anybody who reads the story, and who counts the days from the conclusion of Miss Halcombe’s diary, can verify the calculation for himself.’Ĭollins wrote to his publisher, Edward Marston of Sampson Low, on 31 October ‘If any fresh impression of The Woman in White is likely to be wanted immediately, stop the press till I come back. In the book edition the date of that death was 26 July whereas as the reviewer points out ‘…we could easily show that Lady Glyde could not have left Blackwater Park before the 9th or 10th of August. The plot relies on the fact that Laura’s departure for London took place the day after Anne Catherick had died under Laura’s name. The most well known error of chronology is that first described in The Times of 30 October 1860. These changes can to some extent be linked with its publishing history and the progress of its many early editions. In The Woman in White the complex nature of the plot, revolving as it does about certain key dates, obliged him in the interests of accuracy to make several alterations in the actual chronology of the story. TEXTUAL CHANGES IN CHRONOLOGYĬollins continually revised his works in matters of style and detail. The identification of these early editions is difficult: first because of their variety and number secondly because of the virtually simultaneous publication on both sides of the Atlantic and thirdly because of the many changes in the complicated text introduced by the author. It rapidly became Collins’s most popular novel and was subsequently issued in numerous book editions. The Woman in White was first published in serial form in All the Year Round from 26 November 1859 to 25 August 1860 (40 parts) and concurrently in Harper’s Weekly from 26 November 1859 to 8 September 1860 (42 parts – the last three parts of All The Year Round were spread over five weeks).
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