The Woman in White is based on a true story; specifically, an actual case of a woman's wrongful imprisonment from Maurice Mejan's 1808 book: Recueil des Causes Celebres.  Wilkie Collins was inspired by the idea of substituted identity and the misuse of lunatic asylums. The case, in particular, was about Marie Douhault who was locked away in a lunatic asylum. Marie's identity was stolen after she had been drugged and placed in an asylum under a flase name. Moroever, she was presumed dead and her estate was passed on to her heirs.

It is important to acknolwedge the 1850s ‘lunacy panic’ within Victorian Society.  In the 1850s, lurid rumours that medical doctors were declaring normal people "insane" in Britain, were spread by the press causing widespread public anxiety. The fear was that people who were a source of embarrassment to their families were conveniently disposed of into asylums with the willing connivance of the psychiatric profession.