
Hide and Seek
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Narrated by:
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Nicholas Boulton
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By:
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Wilkie Collins
About this listen
Appearing in 1854, Hide and Seek was Wilkie Collins’s third published novel. At the centre of the plot is the mystery surrounding a deaf and dumb girl known as Madonna, whom the painter Valentine Blyth rescues from her life as a circus performer. But it is only when Blyth’s friend Zack Thorpe rebels against his disciplinarian father and falls into bad company that the secret of Madonna is revealed.
Combining charm and excitement, Hide and Seek is presented in two halves: the first is leisurely and discursive while the second picks up the pace, foreshadowing Collins’s later sensational fiction.
Hide and Seek is persuasively delivered by Nicholas Boulton, who has read several of Collins’s novels, including No Name, Armadale, The Dead Secret, and Man and Wife.
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Only complaint is I wish it were longer
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Well read & a good story
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Good story.
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The Dead Secret
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Overall
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A masterful blend of Gothic drama and romance, Wilkie Collins' mystery novel is an exploration of illegitimacy and inheritance. Set in Cornwall, the plot foreshadows The Woman in White with its themes of doubtful identity and deception and involves a broad array of characters. The "secret" of the book's title is the true parentage of the book's heroine, Rosamond Treverton, which has been written down and kept in an unused room at Porthgenna Tower. This is where, 20 years later, much of the novel's action is set.
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Only complaint is I wish it were longer
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- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Appearing in 1852, Basil was Wilkie Collins’s second published novel. The eponymous narrator is emotionally torn between two women: Margaret Sherwin and his sister Clara. His marriage to Margaret, a draper’s sexually precocious daughter, is to remain secret and unconsummated for the first year, as agreed with her father.
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- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
-
Story
Incorrectly signing her name in the marriage registry leads Valeria Woodville to discover further disturbing information about her husband, Eustace Macallan. Each revelation leads to further questions as Valeria’s journey prompts her to defy him, taking the law into her own hands as she endeavours to navigate her way through a series of false clues and obstructions.
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- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
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-
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Good story.
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Overall
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Performance
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Listen again & again to unravel layers of mystery
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Performance
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Really Really Good Story
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horrible technically - echoes at most of the words
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What listeners say about Hide and Seek
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- LH
- 06-23-24
favorite Wilkie Collins book
the reader dies an excellent job of bringing to life each if the characters. I didn't want the book to end!
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- AnnaWares
- 12-12-24
Another solid story from a master storyteller
Not the best of Wilkie Collins, but I still enjyed the book quite a lot.
You get brilliant storytelling, interesting colourful characters and flawless narration from Nicholas Boulton to boot. What is there not to like?
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- D. Good
- 01-30-25
Very entertaining!
Great story left one guessing till the very end. I thoroughly enjoy Wilkie Colin's books
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- Simon Brodie
- 01-27-22
Recommended to fans of Victorian literature
This is one of Collins’s early novels, published several years before The Woman in White. The story centers around a young deaf and dumb woman and those who seek to discover—or to conceal—her parentage. Maybe not quite as impressive as the author’s novels of the 1860’s, but still a good tale. Nicholas Boulton’s reading, as usual, is first-class.
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- John
- 02-13-25
Collins Learned a lot from His Mentor
Like Dickens at his best, this is the perfect balance between heartthrob pathos and gentle, good-natured comedy. Like Dickens, Collins creates and populates a world that lives in your earbuds. Sometimes – as when Mr. Blythe exhibits his latest paintings – it’s a world you wouldn’t mind living in yourself.
True, the central plot turn might strike some listeners as predictable. Given everything that precedes that turn, I consider it inevitable. No, this one isn’t as deeply engaging as Collins’ four great novels. But this charming story repays your attention handsomely and is interesting as a milestone on the way to those four great stories. As always, Nicholas Boulton is simply superb at the mic.
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- Jennifer
- 02-17-25
Wonderful Narration
A very Wilkie Collin’s story. Loads of coincidences, high emotion, drama, and secrets by the teapot full. The narrator was wonderful. He was able to create distinctive, realistic voices for each character and somehow kept them all consistent over this very, very long story.
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- Jon C
- 06-16-23
Very worthwhile if you're a Wilkie fan
As usual Nicholas Boulton does an amazing job bringing a Wilkie Collins story to life. I even found myself pausing and replaying some of the particularly delightful turns of phrase. This one is certainly worth your time if you're already a Wilkie Collins fan. As many of his books do, this one has a secret at the heart of it, and piecing it all together is a good part of the fun, especially since there are many disparate characters at the beginning. I think it's fair to say that Hide and Seek is more about the characters and their dealings than the plot, which is kind of thin and not really discernible until what seemed like more than halfway into the book. Thinking about it, I wonder if old Wilkie knew what he wanted the plot of this to be when he started writing, because it veers around from one character to another, making the reader think the plot could lie with this main character or that other character, but instead, any movement in the plot lies with a character introduced quite late. As a result, it took a little patience to get into the story, which is why I believe it's for a Wilkie fan rather than someone who hasn't read his top 4 novels, but all that said, I found it very enjoyable once all the main characters were introduced.
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- Ann Marie Taylor
- 07-30-24
Wilkie my Idol
Not as great as the Women in White or Moonstone but a fabulous book not to be missed
I could not put it down
A fabulous narrator
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- Alex
- 05-20-22
Wilkie learning his craft
As usual, Nicholas Boulton is an absolute gem of a narrator. And Wilkie’s flow of adjectives and painting a picture are already there, but the story is super boring for the first 2/3 and only gets mildly better by the end. I’m a huge fan of 19th century novels (and Wilkie Collins in particular), but this one isn’t worth it. Sorry to say.
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