Penguin English Library The first and greatest of the bestselling Victorian thrillers known as "sensation novels", The Woman in White opens with a chilling encounter between drawing teacher Walter Hartright and a ghostly female figure on a moonlit road. From this moment Walter is drawn into a terrifying world of intrigue, crime, disguise and insanity, as he tries to save his beautiful pupil Laura from the sinister plans of Sir Percival Glyde and the "Napoleon of Crime", Count Fosco, in one of the most gripping plots in English fiction.