Volume 13 , Issue 1

Woman In White (1859 & 1938)

The Woman In White, as far as I can discern was a radio soap opera that ran from 1938 to 1948, created by Irna Phillips (July 1, 1901 - December 22, 1973). The Novel Woman In White was written in 1859 or 1860 by Wilkie Collins, a Victorian sensationalists fiction novel of modern mystery thriller detective novel genres.

Early Radio Career

After working as a staff writer on a daytime talk show, Iran Phillips created the serial Painted Dreams. Historians now believe the show to have been the first daytime serial specifically targeted for women. On this show Phillips wrote every episode, in addition to starring in the show as family matriarch "Mother Moynihan".

Although this show began as an unsponsored program, Phillips believed that a radio series must be a utility to its sponsors and that it must actually sell merchandise; otherwise the object of radio advertising has failed. With this in mind, she wrote in an engagement and a wedding which provided the possibility of product tie-ins.

Dispute Over Painted Dreams

By 1932 Phillips urged the local Chicago station WGN to sell Painted Dreams to a national network. When they refused, Phillips took them to court, claiming the show as her own property. In the meantime, Phillips created a new show, Today's Children. Historians believe that Today's Children represented the first instance of a broadcast network soap opera, thereby crediting Phillips with inventing the genre.

By 1938, Painted Dreams emerged from the courts and was purchased by CBS. The nature of the court settlement prohibited Phillips from any future involvement with the series.

In 1938, Phillips's mother died, and Phillips demanded that Today's Children be discontinued out of respect. NBC agreed and replaced it with her new series, Woman in White.

Woman in White

Woman in White was another early creation, and one of the first serials to focus on the internal workings of a hospital. Agnes Nixon and Harding Lemay had suggested that Phillips was hypochondriac.

It was on Woman in White that Phillips first became involved with a young Agnes Nixon, then known by her maiden name, Agnes Eckhardt. Nixon remembered entering an interview with Phillips carrying a script she had written which Phillips proceeded to act out in front of her. When she was finished she offered Nixon a job. William J. Bell also began his apprenticeship under Phillips during her radio days.

The Novel -- Woman In White was written in 1859 or 1860 by Wilkie Collins. I found information concerning the novel, by Wilkie Collins, published in 1860. It was a Victorian sensationalists fiction novel. They considered Collins as the father of the modern mystery thriller and detective novel genres. Collins, like his friend Charles Dickens, uses the novel to expose social injustices of his time, in particular, the lack of legal rights afforded married women. Collins presents this story as if holding a trial in which characters present their perspective on the events through narrative, diary excerpts and eye-witness accounts. The main story takes place between July, 1849, and August, 1852. Much of the story is told through the narrative of Walter Hartright, an art tutor who falls in love with a student, Laura Fairlie, who is engaged to Sir Percival Glyde. Percival marries for Laura's inheritance, which he seeks to gain through her.   |  View or Add Comments (0 Comments)   |   Receive updates ( subscribers)  |   Unsubscribe

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