To begin with a caveat, Theodor Fontane is not a gothic novelist. References to the gothic and the uncanny are central to many of his works, however; indeed perhaps the most famous revenant of all, the ghost, appears over and over again. Actually, it is the ghost of a ghost that materializes in Fontane's texts. In terms of a functional analysis of German gothic writing, this re-apparition marks an historical modification of the topos of the ghost. The following essay will trace this functional modification by focusing on the theme of the woman in white in Fontane's first novel. It is interesting to note that her apparition in Vor dem Sturm (Before the Storm, 1878) was not her first appearance in Fontane's oeuvre, nor would it be her last. She never appears on her own, however, for Fontane always portrayed the lady in white as part of a discourse, that is to say, as the subject of stories, images, and folklore.