
Mystery & Suspense · Free digital edition
The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins – Free Online Edition with Read-Aloud and AI Reading Tools
By Wilkie Collins · 1859
A mysterious roadside encounter draws Walter Hartright into a conspiracy of stolen identity, confinement, and inheritance.
About this free edition
Read The Woman in White online
A late-night encounter on a moonlit road sets Walter Hartright on a path into a world of stolen identity, wrongful confinement, and contested inheritance. Published in 1859, Wilkie Collins's The Woman in White unfolds as a mystery assembled from multiple narrators, each offering their account of the same disturbing events. The novel opens with a quiet declaration of purpose: "This is the story of what a Woman's patience can endure, and what a Man's resolution can achieve." This free edition in the Vocalini Open Library is available to read and listen to online immediately, with no account or checkout required. It is a public domain text.
- Read and listen at the same time with synchronized word and sentence highlighting during read-aloud playback.
- Select any passage to simplify the wording, get key points, or ask the built-in AI a question about the text.
- Free and instant access to this public domain edition — no account, subscription, or checkout required.
Source: Project Gutenberg illustrated HTML edition. Not restricted by U.S. copyright law; readers outside the United States should check their local laws.
Accessible reading tools
Read in the way that works best for you
Free text-to-speech
Listen to the visible book text at your pace without buying an audiobook or creating an account.
Synchronized highlighting
Sentence and word highlighting move with the voice, helping you follow the page and keep your place.
Built-in AI reading help
Select a passage to get key points, simplify difficult wording, request an explanation, or ask a question.
This edition includes several tools designed to make reading more comfortable and flexible. Text-to-speech reads the visible text aloud, while sentence and word highlighting stays synchronized with playback so you can follow along visually at your own pace. You can also select any passage and use the built-in AI to get key points, simplify the wording, explain what you just read, or ask a question about it. These features are designed with readers who have dyslexia, ADHD, learning disabilities, or visual-tracking needs in mind, and may also help people reading in an additional language. No account is needed to use them.
From the opening pages
Begin reading
“This is the story of what a Woman’s patience can endure, and what a Man’s resolution can achieve.”
Continue exploring

Pride and Prejudice
Jane Austen

Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland
Lewis Carroll

The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes
Arthur Conan Doyle

Frankenstein
Mary Shelley