10 Things That Happened While I Read Wilkie Collins’ ‘The Woman in White’

by Rebecca Jane Stokes

1. Got confused and kept waiting for the character Daniel Radcliffe played in the film to show up. This never happened because I was thinking of the Woman in Black, which is a whole other deal and wasn’t even ever a novel, it turns out. Scary, though.

2. Discovered when telling people what I was reading that I have a specific and unique speech impediment that prevents me from saying the word ‘epistolary’ correctly the first time, or anytime.

3. Decided that someone should make a TV show in which Wilkie Collins and Dickens fight crime — supernatural crime. (Previously, when I learned W.H. Auden proposed a platonic roommate arrangement to Hannah Arendt, I decided that this would make a hilarious Odd Couple-esque web series. What I’m saying is that I often have excellent ideas.)

4. Googled “Woman in White Man in Iron Mask Fan Fic” partially out of curiosity, partially to see if there was as much demand as I suspected.

5. Felt bad for how Italians were portrayed in 19th-century British Literature. Resolved to watch no more fewer mafia films.

6. Noted that bird and mouse ownership should be used more often to denote a morally bankrupt nature.

7. Resolved that should I decide to spy on someone, I would have the wherewithal to bring an umbrella, thus avoiding typhus, to which, as a member of the gentler sex, I am particularly susceptible, apparently.

8. Learned that one way to meet mad bitches is to teach drawing slash be dashing and of a good middle-class family.

9. Swore to never name a child Percival.

10. Was thankful that, because of cars, I will never have to travel long distances by carriage, nor, thanks to my penury, fear being drugged and hidden in an asylum so that my evil fiance can have all my money.

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