ABSTRACT
This chapter looks at what is meant by sensation fiction, discussing it in its contemporary cultural context, and shows how reading The Woman in White as a sensation novel can enrich the understanding of the text. It discusses the relationship between sensationalism and Gothic. The interest in secrets and spying, which for most of the novel concerns reprehensible or downright criminal activity in the domestic sphere, extends into the realm of political activity with the discovery of the Count's identity as a spy. Secrecy and secrets have to do both with content and with method; the plot of The Woman in White concerns the unravelling of a series of secrets, but the way in which the story is told depends on keeping secrets from the reader. The Woman in White caused a sensation when it was first published in serial form in Charles Dickens's magazine All the Year Round.
