Octavo hardcover bound in red genuine leather. Both boards are extensively decorated with gilt floral and foliate patterns enclosed within multiple gilt rules. The rounded spine has raised bands, gilt floral ornamentation, and the title and author’s name stamped in gilt.
The book has gilt page edges, light-colored moiré endpapers, a bound-in ribbon page marker, and archival-quality acid-neutral paper. Illustrated by Leonard Rosoman, including a color frontispiece. The original Easton Press Notes from the Archives sheet is included.
Wilkie Collins’s Victorian sensation novel follows drawing teacher Walter Hartright after his nighttime encounter with a distressed woman dressed entirely in white. His subsequent employment at an English country estate draws him into a mystery involving Laura Fairlie, Marian Halcombe, a secret confinement, disputed identity, inheritance, and the schemes of Sir Percival Glyde and Count Fosco. The novel combines Gothic atmosphere, psychological suspense, romance, and early detective-fiction techniques.