Law and wife

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The Law and the Lady , English first edition from 1875

Law and Woman (originally The Law and The Lady ) is a novel by Wilkie Collins , published in 1875. It is the first work in crime fiction in which a woman investigates as a detective. Like the classic The Woman in White , the book is part of the “mystery novel”. In 1895 a German translation was published under the title Was ein Weib vermag . Another German translation by Adolf Gleiner was published in 1907 under the title Not proven . A new translation by Sebastian Vogel was published in 2018 under the title A woman wants justice.

action

It was love at first sight: a few weeks after the young Valeria Eustace met Woodville, she married him. But on her honeymoon, she discovers that her husband now seems to be carrying a secret with him. She then breaks off the trip and drives back to London, where she starts investigations. With the help of a friend of her husband, Major Fitz-David, who is not averse to women, she discovers that her husband's real name is Macallan and that he changed his name because he had already been on trial once: at that time he was the murderer of his first wife accused. Valeria, who loves Eustace more than anything, tries to find out by reading the trial files and doing further research what really happened back then and who poisoned her predecessor with arsenic. At all costs she wants to free her husband from the terrible suspicions and find the truth ...

Narrative

In contrast to many of Wilkie Collins' other novels, this novel does not consist of the accounts of different people, but is told from the first person from Valeria's point of view.

criticism

"Labyrinthine thriller, bitter reflection on deceivers, rousing portrait of a heroine [...]." Law and Woman "is the first detective novel in which a woman is a detective. Reading this work one understands the boundless admiration [...] Hitchcocks for the master Wilkie Collins (1824-1889) [...] "(Translation of the French blurb of the Edition Phébus libretto, Paris 1999, original text: Thriller labyrinthique, âpre réflexion sur les faux-semblants, vibrant portrait d'une héroïne [ ...], Seule contre la loi passe pour le premier roman policier dont le detective est une femme. À la lecture de cet opus, on comprend l'admiration sans borne que [...] Hitchcock [voua] au maître Wilkie Collins )

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