Woman in white, the

Walter Hartright, a young drawing master, is walking from Hampstead to London. On this he meets a mysterious woman dressed in white, apparently in deep distress. He helps her on her way to London but later learns that she has escaped from an asylum. The next day he travels north to Limmeridge House, on a commission of being drawing master to residents of the house, previously gained by his devoted friend, an Italian language professor named Pesca. The household comprises Mr Frederick Fairlie, and Walter's students: Laura Fairlie, Mr Fairlie's niece, and Marian Halcombe, her devoted half-sister. Hartright finds that Laura bears an astonishing resemblance to the woman in white, called Anne Catherick. The mentally disadvantaged Anne had lived for a time in Cumberland as a child and was devoted to Laura's mother, who first dressed her in white...