The Woman in White, by Vyilkie Collins (OUP World Classics, £2.50 in UK)

Collins's mid Victorian novel is one of the first, and possibly still the greatest, of all literary thrillers, and it became …

Collins's mid Victorian novel is one of the first, and possibly still the greatest, of all literary thrillers, and it became not only an immediate bestseller but a social craze. "While the novel was still sell in its thousands, manufacturers were producing Woman in White perfumes, Woman in White cloaks and bonnets, and the music shops displayed Woman in White waltzes and quadrilles." Its intricate plotting marked a new stage in professional storytelling and anticipated the modern detective novel, while its technique of making the various characters speak for themselves was also highly original. And in the sinister Italian, Count Fosco, Collins created one of the great melodramatic characters of English literature, an operatic villain who is also something of a clown and buffo bass.