The main geographical settings of The Woman in White include London, Limmeridge in Cumberland, Blackwater in Hampshire, and the rural environs of these two country estates. It is worth noting that Cumberland is in northern England and that Hampshire is in southern England; when Laura marries Sir Percival, she and Marian move to the other side of the country. While Limmeridge is associated with childhood, safety, love, and bliss, Blackwater becomes a place of danger, illness, secrets, and fear.
Another important setting is South America, but it does not feature as a concrete setting from which the story is narrated as much as a setting of characters' fears, memories, and dreams. Walter does not narrate from his travels, but his considerable geographical separation from the events of about a third of the novel is nonetheless significant. Although Walter does not discuss this setting at length, it does make its way into Marian's dreams.
The novel's temporal setting is the Victorian era, which approximately corresponds with the latter two thirds of the 19th century. This time period shapes several of the characters as well as their inner and outer conflicts. For example, Mr. Fairlie fulfills a stereotype of the frail, selfish, hypochondriac Victorian aristocrat, and Laura Fairlie fulfills a stereotype of the passive, beautiful, and virtuous Victorian woman. Collins seizes upon the assumptions and conventions of his time period to comment on society and its whims.
The setting is central to the novel's genre. In sensation novels, it was crucial for writers to orchestrate crime, violence, and madness in ordinary domestic environments. This is because these sinister plots would be all the more gripping if they were to take place in settings that would be familiar to their Victorian readers. Collins uses these contemporary country estates and suburban middle-class neighborhoods to suggest to his reader that such places can be sites of depravity.
