a.k.a "The Dream Woman" [1855]; first published as "The Ostler".

This collection contains the following Gothic tales:

Another Collins contribution to the subgenre of the "predicament tale," most famously represented by Poe's "The Pit and the Pendulum" (and don't forget William Mudford's "The Iron Shroud.")

Another of Collins' "fate" stories.

See my note above to "Miss Jéromette and the Clergyman." It's also worth noting that this novel, hugely popular in its lifetime (spawning "Woman in White" bonnets and perfume, among other merchandise), used a narrative technique that may well have influenced the famous Gothic-tradition masterpieces Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and, especially, Dracula, both of which feature "composite" narratives, stories told by the stringing together of information from a number of different sources: letters, journal entries, newspaper clippings, wills — even, in the case of The Woman in White, an epitaph. While obviously there are literary precedents (think of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, or the epistolary novels so popular in the C18), Collins may have been influential in bringing this technique into prominence in the later C19. For one thing, it fit with the Victorian priviledging of rationalism and empiricism; for another, it resonated with the Victorian fascination with sensational trials, which formed the basis of innumerable chapbooks and novels. Collins himself was struck with the novelistic potential of using various narrative voices when he attended a trial in London in 1856 and noted how the spectators became increasingly interested as each succeeding witness took the stand. The Woman in White, while its opening incident may have come directly from Collins' own life (see above), is also deeply indebted to Collins' reading about a French court case in an old volume of trial proceedings he bought in Paris. The Woman in White has been filmed a number of times, as has The Moonstone
Collins, who wrote several plays during his life and performed in semi-professional theatricals with Charles Dickens, also dramatized The Woman in White in 1871.