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Hide And Seek
The girl named Mary -- they called her Madonna, and she was deaf and dumb and beautiful as a painting by Raphael -- was a mystery. The Blyths adopted her from a kindly old woman connected to a traveling circus, but everyone knew she wasn't from circus folk. All they DID know about her identity was that she'd lost her hearing in an accident, and the proprietor of the circus had treated her horribly, and, and . . . and in her cache of secret personal private things, she owned one thing as precious to her as life a bracelet made of brown human hair with the initials MG tied into it. The Blyths kept it locked in a bureau for fear that Mary's unknown family might one day claim her. . . .
296 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1854
84 people are currently reading
925 people want to read
About the author
Wilkie Collins
2,364 books2,935 followersWilkie Collins was an English novelist and playwright, best known for The Woman in White (1860), an early sensation novel, and The Moonstone (1868), a pioneering work of detective fiction. Born to landscape painter William Collins and Harriet Geddes, he spent part of his childhood in Italy and France, learning both languages. Initially working as a tea merchant, he later studied law, though he never practiced. His literary career began with Antonina (1850), and a meeting with Charles Dickens in 1851 proved pivotal. The two became close friends and collaborators, with Collins contributing to Dickens' journals and co-writing dramatic works.
Collins' success peaked in the 1860s with novels that combined suspense with social critique, including No Name (1862), Armadale (1864), and The Moonstone, which established key elements of the modern detective story. His personal life was unconventional—he openly opposed marriage and lived with Caroline Graves and her daughter for much of his life, while also maintaining a separate relationship with Martha Rudd, with whom he had three children.
Plagued by gout, Collins became addicted to laudanum, which affected both his health and later works. Despite declining quality in his writing, he remained a respected figure, mentoring younger authors and advocating for writers' rights. He died in 1889 and was buried in Kensal Green Cemetery. His legacy endures through his influential novels, which laid the groundwork for both sensation fiction and detective literature.
Collins' success peaked in the 1860s with novels that combined suspense with social critique, including No Name (1862), Armadale (1864), and The Moonstone, which established key elements of the modern detective story. His personal life was unconventional—he openly opposed marriage and lived with Caroline Graves and her daughter for much of his life, while also maintaining a separate relationship with Martha Rudd, with whom he had three children.
Plagued by gout, Collins became addicted to laudanum, which affected both his health and later works. Despite declining quality in his writing, he remained a respected figure, mentoring younger authors and advocating for writers' rights. He died in 1889 and was buried in Kensal Green Cemetery. His legacy endures through his influential novels, which laid the groundwork for both sensation fiction and detective literature.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 81 reviews
December 30, 2025
Is forgiveness possible when a situation is so brutal and can never be changed for the better, done, finis forever. A bit of a mystery story maybe it isn't the classic , The Moonstone or The Woman in White, both by the author of Hide and Seek (Wilkie Collins). The past returns in force to Victorian England as a sinister figure from a different era , over 20 years ago returns, begins to ask questions searching for an individual a loved one, hiding thus the title , just reverse the words. A rough stranger calls himself Matthew Marksman not a real name obviously appears, he too has a face, to be kind if possible ....ugly scars aren't beautiful, but is his curiosity for the good , I doubt it. Basically a bum as he travels the lonely roads in the remote wilderness of the 1850s world . Troubles are numerous, fights for sure, kill or be killed in the Americas both North and South and the natives aren't friendly, undoubtedly survival is the ultimate object . Mat and Zach Thorpe a wayward man boy (more the latter). They meet in a disreputable bar ... tavern brawl commences, vicious, two against many. So they become brothers naturally what else. Mat however wants, needs to solve something but what, the man doesn't and will not say but you feel uneasy, always difficulties, the unseen ghosts from the past are never easy to find . Kind Valentine Blyth an ardent painter sells enough to get by with an adopted beautiful daughter Mary (Madonna , yes nicknamed this) with disabilities and an invalid, dear wife, a poor artist yet a great human struggling. Slowly the story unfolds , takes nevertheless too many detours , red herrings, an edit would have streamlined the narrative for a faster pace still the 1800s was not noted for that. A more leisurely time though what's the hurry no t. v. , film, radio, internet, just talk still that can be tiresome much better to sit down on a warm comfortable sofa and relax have a cup of tea, eat a crumpet, read a good book, see the whole universe, your dangerous adventures are safe at home. A detective story which is the main reason to get the book , the patient reader fellows the narrative, joins the journey in the maze and pulls the cover of the curtains to the final destination however still not everything is black or white , nuances color the preceding and humans aren't easily put in a single category, the puzzle may be unmasked but is justice blind?
October 16, 2022
Maybe 3.5. I always love Wilkie Collins's writing, so the reading experience was enjoyable, but I did have a few issues with this one. The pacing felt a little off, and the novel didn't seem to have as much peril and tension as Wilkie Collins thought it did. I also struggled with the ending. A mixed bag, all in all.
May 16, 2020
Hide and Seek (1854) is Wilkie Collins's third novel. In 1861 Collins's heavily revised and shortened the novel.
While the plot is quite predictable and with too much coincidence to be believable the story is a page turner nevertheless. It should be remembered that Collin's The Moonstone (1868) is considered to be the first detective novel in English language and that the author is one of the pioneers of the genre.
And it isn't the secret of Madonnas' parentage that keeps the readers' attention, it is Collins's characters, his humour and portrayal of British classes. Add to that positive portrayal of two disabled characters and plausible ending and you have an awesome book.
My apologies to Dolores Umbridge, who isn't anymore most dislikable fictional character I've ever meet. This dubious honour goes to Miss Joanna Grice.
While the plot is quite predictable and with too much coincidence to be believable the story is a page turner nevertheless. It should be remembered that Collin's The Moonstone (1868) is considered to be the first detective novel in English language and that the author is one of the pioneers of the genre.
And it isn't the secret of Madonnas' parentage that keeps the readers' attention, it is Collins's characters, his humour and portrayal of British classes. Add to that positive portrayal of two disabled characters and plausible ending and you have an awesome book.
My apologies to Dolores Umbridge, who isn't anymore most dislikable fictional character I've ever meet. This dubious honour goes to Miss Joanna Grice.
September 10, 2020
I always enjoy a Wilkie Collins book.
December 31, 2022
Hide and Seek (1854), Wilkie Collins’s third novel, was my choice for relaxing Christmas reading and it worked magnificently on that score. By the end, I was gripped, and even moved, by the story (hokey though it is, by the cold light of the morning after). There were also, as ever with Collins, all kinds of fascinating details along the way.
No one would say that Hide and Seek was Wilkie’s finest, even though it has the distinction of being the first of his novels to incorporate a ‘detective’ element, and the first to feature one of the disabled characters which make up such an intriguing leitmotif of his fiction. Hide and Seek is an apprenticeship novel, the work of a writer still finding his footing. There are longueurs and tedious expository passages, especially towards the beginning (and I read it in the revised 1861 version, where Collins had self-declaredly expunged some such sections—Heaven help readers of the original version!) The outrageous coincidences that are such a staple part of Victorian sensation novels are more show-stopping here even than usual.
Despite all this, however, there is much to savour here, especially the novel’s insouciant attitude to ‘Victorian values’. I loved the fact that the two flag-wavers for strict morality in the novel, Mr Thorpe and Aunt Joanna, were the most wrong-headed figures in the novel, and that Mr Thorpe’s perverse distortion of his son Zachary’s moral compass, through a crass, formalistic application of ‘Christian values’, had to be put right through the lessons of a self-confessed ‘bitter bad ‘un’, the memorably louche, brandy-swilling backwoodsman, Mat ‘Marksman’ Grice. The novel’s ‘good’ characters make up an oddball cast that would grace any contemporary independent movie: bohemian artist Valentine Blyth; his disabled wife Lavinia; illegitimate, deaf-mute former circus performer Mary, a.k.a. Madonna; wayward Mat; wayward Zack; tubby clown’s widow, Martha Peckover—all, in various ways, by Victorian standards, outcasts and oddballs, but united by their essential human decency.
One detail I loved here is that Collins made his artist character, Valentine, a transparently lovely man, but also a patently bad artist—someone who has sacrificed family wealth and a career in business to make his career as a painter, but who isn’t particularly good at his fatal ‘calling’. The descriptions of Valentine’s work—the pompous history paintings he seeks to foist on the Royal Academy and his commercial output of idealising portraits of infants, which look nothing like the sitters, but which fond parents embrace as the spitting image of their adored sprogs—are some of the funniest parts of the novel.
Two details I would pull out for special notice are Collins’s ground-breaking attempt to portray a deaf character in fiction (based, as I learned from the web—see link below) on a detailed first-person account by a contemporary of his own deafness, suffered in childhood, and his fascinating portrayal of the expanding Victorian London of the 1850s in the opening chapters, complete with elegiac portraits of the vanishing fields that the city’s fast-growing suburbs devoured in their wake. A detail I loved was that Mat ‘Marksman’, who has spent his adulthood in the Fenimore Cooper wilds of America, cannot survive a night in London without making his way out to the country to greet the dawn: a night jaunt still just possible at the time, even from his gin-soaked Holborn lodgings in ‘Kirk Street’, complete with convenient late-night oyster-shop across the way.
Huzzah!
https://wilkiecollinssociety.org/john...
No one would say that Hide and Seek was Wilkie’s finest, even though it has the distinction of being the first of his novels to incorporate a ‘detective’ element, and the first to feature one of the disabled characters which make up such an intriguing leitmotif of his fiction. Hide and Seek is an apprenticeship novel, the work of a writer still finding his footing. There are longueurs and tedious expository passages, especially towards the beginning (and I read it in the revised 1861 version, where Collins had self-declaredly expunged some such sections—Heaven help readers of the original version!) The outrageous coincidences that are such a staple part of Victorian sensation novels are more show-stopping here even than usual.
Despite all this, however, there is much to savour here, especially the novel’s insouciant attitude to ‘Victorian values’. I loved the fact that the two flag-wavers for strict morality in the novel, Mr Thorpe and Aunt Joanna, were the most wrong-headed figures in the novel, and that Mr Thorpe’s perverse distortion of his son Zachary’s moral compass, through a crass, formalistic application of ‘Christian values’, had to be put right through the lessons of a self-confessed ‘bitter bad ‘un’, the memorably louche, brandy-swilling backwoodsman, Mat ‘Marksman’ Grice. The novel’s ‘good’ characters make up an oddball cast that would grace any contemporary independent movie: bohemian artist Valentine Blyth; his disabled wife Lavinia; illegitimate, deaf-mute former circus performer Mary, a.k.a. Madonna; wayward Mat; wayward Zack; tubby clown’s widow, Martha Peckover—all, in various ways, by Victorian standards, outcasts and oddballs, but united by their essential human decency.
One detail I loved here is that Collins made his artist character, Valentine, a transparently lovely man, but also a patently bad artist—someone who has sacrificed family wealth and a career in business to make his career as a painter, but who isn’t particularly good at his fatal ‘calling’. The descriptions of Valentine’s work—the pompous history paintings he seeks to foist on the Royal Academy and his commercial output of idealising portraits of infants, which look nothing like the sitters, but which fond parents embrace as the spitting image of their adored sprogs—are some of the funniest parts of the novel.
Two details I would pull out for special notice are Collins’s ground-breaking attempt to portray a deaf character in fiction (based, as I learned from the web—see link below) on a detailed first-person account by a contemporary of his own deafness, suffered in childhood, and his fascinating portrayal of the expanding Victorian London of the 1850s in the opening chapters, complete with elegiac portraits of the vanishing fields that the city’s fast-growing suburbs devoured in their wake. A detail I loved was that Mat ‘Marksman’, who has spent his adulthood in the Fenimore Cooper wilds of America, cannot survive a night in London without making his way out to the country to greet the dawn: a night jaunt still just possible at the time, even from his gin-soaked Holborn lodgings in ‘Kirk Street’, complete with convenient late-night oyster-shop across the way.
Huzzah!
https://wilkiecollinssociety.org/john...
August 22, 2023
I read this from Complete Works of Wilkie Collins, which is unpaginated, rather than the edition I have shelved which GR says is 260 pages. So I was somewhat frustrated that it was taking me *much* longer to read than I had planned. I think also the beginning is slower than I expected. It is one of Wilkie Collins earliest works and he had not yet hit his stride.
The premise of the book is that, in 1828, a young unmarried woman has found herself with child. She is found with her month-old infant sitting by the side of the road by a Mrs. Peckworth. The woman is so impoverished that she is not able to feed the baby. Mrs. Peckworth, having recently given birth herself, takes the child and suckles it. She takes the mother and infant home with her. Mr. Peckworth is a clown in a circus.
There are other characters, of course. Fast forward 10 years and we find the child one of the circus performers. As I got further into the novel (that I still thought taking too long to read), one character in particular captured my attention and I became very interested in where the novel would take me.
I think of Collins as penning not only sensation novels, as they were called at the time, but also those that have a definite mystery element. Undoubtedly for the times, an unwed mother might have had a sensation element. In the 21st Century, this fails to excite in the same way as it probably did in 1854 when it was first published. Though there are plot points to be discovered along the way, they are too obvious to be called a mystery.
Then, late in the novel, there were scenes that, for me, were poignant enough to bring tears. I was surprised at how easily I felt my eyes get hot - or that this novel should cause tears to be produced. I'd like to think a novel that produces such an emotional reaction should be worth 4-stars, but Collins took so long getting there that I can only give this a strong 3-stars.
The premise of the book is that, in 1828, a young unmarried woman has found herself with child. She is found with her month-old infant sitting by the side of the road by a Mrs. Peckworth. The woman is so impoverished that she is not able to feed the baby. Mrs. Peckworth, having recently given birth herself, takes the child and suckles it. She takes the mother and infant home with her. Mr. Peckworth is a clown in a circus.
There are other characters, of course. Fast forward 10 years and we find the child one of the circus performers. As I got further into the novel (that I still thought taking too long to read), one character in particular captured my attention and I became very interested in where the novel would take me.
I think of Collins as penning not only sensation novels, as they were called at the time, but also those that have a definite mystery element. Undoubtedly for the times, an unwed mother might have had a sensation element. In the 21st Century, this fails to excite in the same way as it probably did in 1854 when it was first published. Though there are plot points to be discovered along the way, they are too obvious to be called a mystery.
Then, late in the novel, there were scenes that, for me, were poignant enough to bring tears. I was surprised at how easily I felt my eyes get hot - or that this novel should cause tears to be produced. I'd like to think a novel that produces such an emotional reaction should be worth 4-stars, but Collins took so long getting there that I can only give this a strong 3-stars.
October 10, 2018
Hide and Seek is Collins’ third novel and first mystery. The novel neatly divides into two distinct sections, “The Hiding“ and “The Seeking” with an opening chapter about the youth, Zach Thorpe. In the Introduction to the Dover edition of the book, the American Collins’ biographer, Nuel Pharr Davis, claims that the prologue as well as long passages of “The Hiding“ are “consistently and indiscreetly autobiographical.” If so, the young Wilkie experienced a rather grim Victorian childhood under a strictly religious father. The Intro also asserts Collins was probably emboldened to do this because of his friendship with Charles Dickens who had recently written his own semi-autobiographical novel, David Copperfield. Collins dedicates his novel to Dickens.
Hide and Seek is a fine read, an interesting story. Collins introduces memorable characters: Mrs. Peckover, the wife of a clown; Valentine Blyth, a sentimental man, who walked away from a life of wealth for the love of art, married to his beloved invalid wife; Zach, an energetic, charismatic but directionless youth; Mat, a mysterious vagabond returning from America, having made his fortune but lost his scalp who befriends Zach; the pretty deaf-mute, Mary, also called, “Madonna,” among others.
There is pathos surrounding Madonna’s birth and the mystery of her parentage. But there’s also some fine humor. One scene in particular where Valentine is trying to explain his painting of Christopher Columbus to his audience was particularly good for a number of reasons. It gives a window on Victorian entertainment in vogue, prevalent understanding of history, (completely unPC for today, but much like what I learned growing up) and medical science, and that competitions between professions were as common then as now.
Although not up to The Moonstone, which I love, not at all bad.
Cannot remember when I picked up this little gem, but it made me look up Collins on Amazon; discovered most of his novels are available for free kindle download. He is not Dickens, but there are evident traces of his mentor.
Hide and Seek is a fine read, an interesting story. Collins introduces memorable characters: Mrs. Peckover, the wife of a clown; Valentine Blyth, a sentimental man, who walked away from a life of wealth for the love of art, married to his beloved invalid wife; Zach, an energetic, charismatic but directionless youth; Mat, a mysterious vagabond returning from America, having made his fortune but lost his scalp who befriends Zach; the pretty deaf-mute, Mary, also called, “Madonna,” among others.
There is pathos surrounding Madonna’s birth and the mystery of her parentage. But there’s also some fine humor. One scene in particular where Valentine is trying to explain his painting of Christopher Columbus to his audience was particularly good for a number of reasons. It gives a window on Victorian entertainment in vogue, prevalent understanding of history, (completely unPC for today, but much like what I learned growing up) and medical science, and that competitions between professions were as common then as now.
Although not up to The Moonstone, which I love, not at all bad.
Cannot remember when I picked up this little gem, but it made me look up Collins on Amazon; discovered most of his novels are available for free kindle download. He is not Dickens, but there are evident traces of his mentor.
March 20, 2022
Wilkie Collins is one of my favourite classical authors but unfortunately this book didn't match up to some of the others I've read. It was just OK for lack of a better word.
The book's first half concerns a painter who adopts a deaf orphan child from a circus, and the second unravels the mystery of the child's parentage.
I did like some of the characters and there was some mild intrigue but it was unfortunately a little on the dull side for me.
The book's first half concerns a painter who adopts a deaf orphan child from a circus, and the second unravels the mystery of the child's parentage.
I did like some of the characters and there was some mild intrigue but it was unfortunately a little on the dull side for me.
July 16, 2016
I adore Wilkie Collins. I prefer him to all his Victorian colleagues (O Hardy! My Hardy! Forgive me. It's a tie between you and Wilkie). The man had soul.
Hide and Seek is a tale of love, betrayal, hardship and forgiveness.
It is both very modern and very outdated.
You find yourself appreciating notions and ideas that seem so open-minded but you also get images and terms that would be deemed offensive nowadays.
"Every man is a creature of the age in which he lives and few are able to raise themselves above the ideas of the time."
He did his best. No doubt about that.
Despite its flaws, it's such a comforting novel. By no means his best and oh, it's contrived as hell but it's sooooo satisfying. Imagine all those things that make you feel all warm and fuzzy inside. Are you picturing them? That's what I'm talking about.
Hide and Seek is a tale of love, betrayal, hardship and forgiveness.
It is both very modern and very outdated.
You find yourself appreciating notions and ideas that seem so open-minded but you also get images and terms that would be deemed offensive nowadays.
"Every man is a creature of the age in which he lives and few are able to raise themselves above the ideas of the time."
He did his best. No doubt about that.
Despite its flaws, it's such a comforting novel. By no means his best and oh, it's contrived as hell but it's sooooo satisfying. Imagine all those things that make you feel all warm and fuzzy inside. Are you picturing them? That's what I'm talking about.
October 18, 2022
This title is one of Wilkie Collins' lesser known works, but engaging and interesting nonetheless. The story centered upon a beautiful little orphan girl who was rendered deaf after a tragic accident. The mystery of her parentage was slowly unfolded bit by bit. There were too many coincidences to make it believable, but it was still a pleasant journey for the reader.
Collins was gifted in portraying domestic scenes, both happy and unhappy. I loved a vignette that occurred when the deaf child was introduced to a loving family with children, and the scene of her delight in playing with them in the garden.
Equally vivid was a scene in the life of a more privileged child, whose father relentlessly force-fed religion. My reading of Victorian literature leads me to believe that there was a general rebellion against a brand of Christianity that was heavy handed, joyless, and rigid.
One of the main characters was an artist, which seems to be another recurring theme in literature of this era. It's almost like society at large didn't know what to do with them. They liked the fruit of their efforts, but didn't want to award them a respectable place in society.
In this case, the artist earned the reader's respect because of the tender way in which he treated his invalid wife and his adopted deaf daughter. The way he furnished his wife's sick room with treasures, trinkets, and every contrived convenience was so heartwarming.
The portrayal of the little deaf girl was sympathetic and kind, but I didn't feel that the reader ever got to know her as anything other than a beautiful curiosity. Still, she was not treated as a pariah--- indicating that a more progressive mindset was evolving toward those with disabilities. Collins references a scientific document in the afterward, his resource for informing his creation of the deaf child.
Wilkie Collins is a favorite Victorian author and his works are accessible and entertaining. I enjoyed this title in spite of its unlikely chain of coincidences.
Collins was gifted in portraying domestic scenes, both happy and unhappy. I loved a vignette that occurred when the deaf child was introduced to a loving family with children, and the scene of her delight in playing with them in the garden.
Equally vivid was a scene in the life of a more privileged child, whose father relentlessly force-fed religion. My reading of Victorian literature leads me to believe that there was a general rebellion against a brand of Christianity that was heavy handed, joyless, and rigid.
One of the main characters was an artist, which seems to be another recurring theme in literature of this era. It's almost like society at large didn't know what to do with them. They liked the fruit of their efforts, but didn't want to award them a respectable place in society.
In this case, the artist earned the reader's respect because of the tender way in which he treated his invalid wife and his adopted deaf daughter. The way he furnished his wife's sick room with treasures, trinkets, and every contrived convenience was so heartwarming.
The portrayal of the little deaf girl was sympathetic and kind, but I didn't feel that the reader ever got to know her as anything other than a beautiful curiosity. Still, she was not treated as a pariah--- indicating that a more progressive mindset was evolving toward those with disabilities. Collins references a scientific document in the afterward, his resource for informing his creation of the deaf child.
Wilkie Collins is a favorite Victorian author and his works are accessible and entertaining. I enjoyed this title in spite of its unlikely chain of coincidences.
December 27, 2015
I enjoyed this a lot, despite its Dickensian elements (this is early Collins, when he was still learning his craft while very much under Dickens's spell--it is dedicated to Dickens, and substantial parts of it were written while Collins was visiting Dickens). Most Dickensian--other than the array of secondary characters with vivid names and odd tics--is the plot's reliance on two enormous and very unlikely coincidences. First, our young scapegrace hero, Zak Thorpe, happens to make friends with the one man in the entire world with a familial connection to the mysterious foundling adopted by artist Valentine Blyth--with whom Zak is also a close friend. Second, and even more implausibly, Zak's own father turns out to be the very cad who seduced and abandoned said mysterious foundling's mother twenty-three years ago, so Zak and "Madonna" are actually brother and sister! Nor is any of this particularly mysterious. Collins makes such a point of identifying the clues that it does not take long to figure out who Zak's new friend will turn out to be. It takes a bit longer to get to the identity of the mysterious seducer, but as long as one is willing to buy that two guys having the same coloured hair is probitive (this is very early in the history of forensic evidence, after all!), it's no great leap to the conclusion. The interest does not really lie in the plot, though, but in the variations Collins rings on conventions. for instance, early on it looks as is Madonna will be the virtuous love interest who will win Zak back from his scapegrace ways--but then, she turns out to be his sister. Second, "Mat" (the long-lost relative of Madonna's coincidentally befriended by Zak) is fascinating not only for his bizarre story (he survived scalping in the Americas, so wears a velvet skull cap to cover his scalpless head!) but also for how Collins plays on him as a revenger. At times, he seems a savage capable of almost anything to avenge his sister's seduction and abandonment, so some sort fo catastrophic conclusion seems possible. However, Collins offers up a much more muted conclusion than one would expect--especially given his reputation as a novelist of sensation. There's also a lot of amusing satire of artistic pretentino in the figure of the mediocre artist Valentine Blyth, as well as subtle but pretty cutting criticism of social inequity and hypocrisy. The book is also written in a sprightly, engaging style--quite possibly in part the result of the fact that Collins revised it considerably a few years after its original publication, cutting substantial chunks.
June 6, 2016
Wilkie Collins's Hide and Seek can be a frustrating novel. It is the third novel by Wilkie Collins and was originally published in 1854. It is written before Collins, Braddon and others launched into the era of the Sensation novel and it is not really a mystery novel in the manner of The Moonstone either. Hide and Seek is, however, a portal into what Wilkie Collins will become, and that is enough reason to discover and read this novel.
The novel is dedicated to Charles Dickens, and as we now know these two authors formed a great personal, professional and theatrical partnership. Of the many interesting points of Hide and Seek one finds that a circus forms a significant part of the early chapters of the novel. Dickens too was writing his circus novel, Hard Times, and while it is a stretch to try and link these two events too closely, both the cruelty and the dignity of the circus is touched upon in each novel, and each novel spins a young character into the centre of the narrative of Hide and Seek. In Hard Times we have Sissy Jupe; in Hide and Seek we have the mysterious Mary (Madonna). Madonna's background becomes a central mystery of Collins's novel. She is of great interest as well because Collins makes her both deaf and mute. Collins researched this affliction and Madonna's portrayal is both sensitive and entirely believable. Also within the novel is a second disabled character, the wife of Valentine Blyth, an artist and the keeper of the object that helps to unravel the history of Madonna's secret past. In Victorian literature I cannot recall two characters who are disabled that form a central core of a novel.
Like many Victorian novels Hide and Seek centres around the mystery of familial connections and relations. To enjoy a Victorian novel one must not roll their eyes but rather smile and embrace such coincidences, and yes, such will be the case in this novel. Another trope of Victorian novels is the unique eccentricities of the characters. Readers of this novel will not be disappointed. One character has been scalped by Indians while in America, but survived, and now wears a silk skull cap. Another character is a mediocre artist who Collins uses to tease out for the readers the pretence of society.
All in all, this novel shows Collins in the cusp of becoming a significant writer of the 19C. It's flaws may be many, but it is a novel that illustrates the point at which Collins steps into the spotlight of fiction in which he has remained until today.
The novel is dedicated to Charles Dickens, and as we now know these two authors formed a great personal, professional and theatrical partnership. Of the many interesting points of Hide and Seek one finds that a circus forms a significant part of the early chapters of the novel. Dickens too was writing his circus novel, Hard Times, and while it is a stretch to try and link these two events too closely, both the cruelty and the dignity of the circus is touched upon in each novel, and each novel spins a young character into the centre of the narrative of Hide and Seek. In Hard Times we have Sissy Jupe; in Hide and Seek we have the mysterious Mary (Madonna). Madonna's background becomes a central mystery of Collins's novel. She is of great interest as well because Collins makes her both deaf and mute. Collins researched this affliction and Madonna's portrayal is both sensitive and entirely believable. Also within the novel is a second disabled character, the wife of Valentine Blyth, an artist and the keeper of the object that helps to unravel the history of Madonna's secret past. In Victorian literature I cannot recall two characters who are disabled that form a central core of a novel.
Like many Victorian novels Hide and Seek centres around the mystery of familial connections and relations. To enjoy a Victorian novel one must not roll their eyes but rather smile and embrace such coincidences, and yes, such will be the case in this novel. Another trope of Victorian novels is the unique eccentricities of the characters. Readers of this novel will not be disappointed. One character has been scalped by Indians while in America, but survived, and now wears a silk skull cap. Another character is a mediocre artist who Collins uses to tease out for the readers the pretence of society.
All in all, this novel shows Collins in the cusp of becoming a significant writer of the 19C. It's flaws may be many, but it is a novel that illustrates the point at which Collins steps into the spotlight of fiction in which he has remained until today.
November 28, 2014
Collins' third novel was his first "mystery" novel, but like his next, The Dead Secret, it's not a conventional mystery as we know them today. Still, although there is no detective on the case, as Collins introduced in his most famous novel, The Moonstone, it's still very much a novel about detection, in this case the quest to discover the origins of the beautiful Mary, or Madonna, left as a newborn in the care of strangers when her mother dies by the roadside, starving as a result of her leaving home from the "shame" of being pregnant and unwed. As you might guess, this being a novel originally published in 1854, the novel is sometimes moralistic about unwed motherhood and premarital sex. But on closer inspection, its emphasis is far ahead of its time in its criticism of overzealous piousness, unchecked moralism, and hypocrisy in general. The novel might also be criticized for relying too much on coincidence to move the plot forward, but that's all part of the fun of reading any Collins novel. It's nearly impossible to put down, and the intricacies of the plot are often so complex that you forget that many of the meetings between characters and their discoveries are extremely improbable. It's best to just sit back and enjoy. Aside from its social criticism and fast pace, one of the things I enjoyed most about Hide and Seek was its humor and warmth. All of the central characters here are extremely well-drawn, and--interacting around the central location of hilariously clueless failed painter Valentine Blyth's home--they form a makeshift family that anticipates, over 150 years in advance, our own current discussions of what really constitutes a family. I have yet to be disappointed by any of Collins' mystery novels (even if you can see the solution to this one about halfway through, it doesn't matter), and this is no exception.
June 21, 2011
I enjoyed Hide and Seek, but the novel wasn't as engaging as Collins's two most famous novels, The Moonstone, and The Woman in White. However, Collins's characterization of Valentine Blyth has to be one of my of his characters. He is by far the best part of the book. Valentine, though an artist, isn't a tortured one. His relationship with his art, though passionate, isn't all-consuming. His love of his wife and adopted daughter are the ruling passions of his life. And this successful contrast of family man and artist is somehow intriguing. However, the novel's other characters fell flat. They seemed more like stock characters than anything else, but Valentine's presence in the novel does make up for that.
What Valentine can't make up for though, is Hide and Seek's narrative. It simply wasn't that engaging or interesting. Perhaps it was distance that comes with third person narration or maybe it was just the plot of the story itself. When I first read The Moonstone and The Woman in White, I tore through them. I couldn't wait to find out the big secrets. That just wasn't the case with Hide and Seek. It was predictable, a quality representative of Collins's other novels. I found myself eager to read only the parts that featured the Blyths.
What Valentine can't make up for though, is Hide and Seek's narrative. It simply wasn't that engaging or interesting. Perhaps it was distance that comes with third person narration or maybe it was just the plot of the story itself. When I first read The Moonstone and The Woman in White, I tore through them. I couldn't wait to find out the big secrets. That just wasn't the case with Hide and Seek. It was predictable, a quality representative of Collins's other novels. I found myself eager to read only the parts that featured the Blyths.
December 27, 2024
"For, let classical moralists say what they may, vice gathers followers as easily, in modern times, with the mask off, as ever it gathered them in ancient times with the mask on."
A good story with a nice twist but certainly not one of his better ones. When I started reading it, I felt like I was being hit with a wall of text that read more Dickensian than anything else. When I read the dedication to Dickens and the biographical note that Collins wrote this whilst spending a significant amount of time with Dickens, I felt very justified. This novel has slightly too much of what I dislike in Dickens, which is the far too extensive narration that feels like it will never end and doesn't quite go anywhere at times. Luckily, Collins was not all lost. If anything, the backdrop of the artist' studio and the life of a painter is very reminiscent of Collins' own upbringing and Zack/Mat appear to be a bit of a combined representation of the young novelist himself.
The book got better and funnier, though the characters became slightly inconsistent. Mat lost his caricature-esque Americanisms and Zack became a lot less sharp for no clear reason. I did enjoy the stabs at the snobbish middle class, especially in the scene where the Duchess demands that the gardener should sit inside for the presentation of the paintings, something the man does not seem in the least interested but the Duchess is keen on being perceived as embodying inclusivity beyond considerations of class. The irony...
A good story with a nice twist but certainly not one of his better ones. When I started reading it, I felt like I was being hit with a wall of text that read more Dickensian than anything else. When I read the dedication to Dickens and the biographical note that Collins wrote this whilst spending a significant amount of time with Dickens, I felt very justified. This novel has slightly too much of what I dislike in Dickens, which is the far too extensive narration that feels like it will never end and doesn't quite go anywhere at times. Luckily, Collins was not all lost. If anything, the backdrop of the artist' studio and the life of a painter is very reminiscent of Collins' own upbringing and Zack/Mat appear to be a bit of a combined representation of the young novelist himself.
The book got better and funnier, though the characters became slightly inconsistent. Mat lost his caricature-esque Americanisms and Zack became a lot less sharp for no clear reason. I did enjoy the stabs at the snobbish middle class, especially in the scene where the Duchess demands that the gardener should sit inside for the presentation of the paintings, something the man does not seem in the least interested but the Duchess is keen on being perceived as embodying inclusivity beyond considerations of class. The irony...
June 26, 2020
What an enjoyable read from the 1850's/ I think that Collins could have been a wonderful screenwriter for daytime drama. In effect this book since it was originally published as a serial was the 1850's equivilant of a soap opera.
August 20, 2020
Really enjoyed this book, what a ride and what a cast of quirky characters!! It was a signature Wilkie with the blend of sensation fiction with domestic settings, executed in a pleasing and fun way! While this plot was not as complex as The Woman in White, it really came together neatly and nicely and the characters were just so damn loveable and unique that it made for a truly enjoyable reading experience.
Last page made me cry! The character of Mat was one of my favourites, just a cool dude, and you couldn't help but love Zack who kept getting into mischief despite his good nature! Valentine Blyth was also a real gem--a male character who was actually a really good guy!!
Last page made me cry! The character of Mat was one of my favourites, just a cool dude, and you couldn't help but love Zack who kept getting into mischief despite his good nature! Valentine Blyth was also a real gem--a male character who was actually a really good guy!!
January 25, 2017
Unveil and revel
Odd as it may sound, being a Collins volume the subject in question, this is not another tale of crime and suspense, but a happy drama without a villain. Indeed, what we have here is a love story—love understood as the urge to exert oneself in order to provide for our fellow creatures and relieve them from any sorrow or predicament. As to the wrong Joanna Grice did (tampering with her niece Mary’s correspondence, deceiving her brother as to where Mary might hace fled to, so that he could not find her, and disowning her altogether when report of her death reached her); aunt Joanna did such awful things believing it was the right course to take in consideration of her own distinguished, untainted lineage. How else to shun the evil from her house? Joanna had been strongly averse to her niece’s liaison with a strange man from the start, and succeeded in separating them too late, for Mary was already pregnant: a most vicious offense to Joanna Grice. Therefore, given her idiosincracy, I venture to argue that Joanna is not a villain really, but rather a victim of the prejudices, fears and notions of a woman of high rank who abided by a corrupt set of values.
But let’s forget that horrible person and meet the main characters of this book, each one of them quite endearing: jolly paintor Valentine Blyth, whose invalid wife he endeavours to keep comfortable and content; aimless, insubordinate yet affectionate Zachary Thorpe, who becomes Valentine's pupil in an attempt to reform himself; Madonna, the orphan lass who Valentine rescues from the circus where an accident had rendered her deaf and dumb in her infancy, adopting her as his own child; and Mat, the boorish fellow that, in seeking vengeance for Mary’s desertion and woeful end, makes a big discovery that affects all around him (growing tame, however, in the process through keeping the company of Zach and Blyth).
I absolutely felt my heart bloat and flutter about in a whirlwind of bliss as I sat and watched the proceedings at the rectory when Mrs Peckover (Madonna’s first saviour, who suckled her as a baby and reared her along with her husband the circus clown), explained the origins of Madonna, to whom the whole family there (even the Newfoundland dog!) accorded a warm welcome; and then Jubber the tyrannical circus manager was foiled in his object of claiming her back as part of his entertainments; at Mr Blyth's studio (either working on his pictures, frolicking with Zach before a lesson or holding his private academy), and at his exhibition room on the evening that he showed his “Columbus” (quarreling with a doctor over the importance of the biceps from the medical and the artistic point of view) and “The Golden Age” to a motley-classed assembly; and at Mat's abode in Kirk street on the occasion of Valentine's visit (I'd return to that chapter any day just to kick at the pile of rubbish under the table and dodge the meals as they fly from the stove to the plate).
Oh, I am so glad to have stumbled upon this gem that I now take it as my duty to talk everyone into reading Collins’ third novel, if only to regain at least for a while our human sensibilities.
Odd as it may sound, being a Collins volume the subject in question, this is not another tale of crime and suspense, but a happy drama without a villain. Indeed, what we have here is a love story—love understood as the urge to exert oneself in order to provide for our fellow creatures and relieve them from any sorrow or predicament. As to the wrong Joanna Grice did (tampering with her niece Mary’s correspondence, deceiving her brother as to where Mary might hace fled to, so that he could not find her, and disowning her altogether when report of her death reached her); aunt Joanna did such awful things believing it was the right course to take in consideration of her own distinguished, untainted lineage. How else to shun the evil from her house? Joanna had been strongly averse to her niece’s liaison with a strange man from the start, and succeeded in separating them too late, for Mary was already pregnant: a most vicious offense to Joanna Grice. Therefore, given her idiosincracy, I venture to argue that Joanna is not a villain really, but rather a victim of the prejudices, fears and notions of a woman of high rank who abided by a corrupt set of values.
But let’s forget that horrible person and meet the main characters of this book, each one of them quite endearing: jolly paintor Valentine Blyth, whose invalid wife he endeavours to keep comfortable and content; aimless, insubordinate yet affectionate Zachary Thorpe, who becomes Valentine's pupil in an attempt to reform himself; Madonna, the orphan lass who Valentine rescues from the circus where an accident had rendered her deaf and dumb in her infancy, adopting her as his own child; and Mat, the boorish fellow that, in seeking vengeance for Mary’s desertion and woeful end, makes a big discovery that affects all around him (growing tame, however, in the process through keeping the company of Zach and Blyth).
I absolutely felt my heart bloat and flutter about in a whirlwind of bliss as I sat and watched the proceedings at the rectory when Mrs Peckover (Madonna’s first saviour, who suckled her as a baby and reared her along with her husband the circus clown), explained the origins of Madonna, to whom the whole family there (even the Newfoundland dog!) accorded a warm welcome; and then Jubber the tyrannical circus manager was foiled in his object of claiming her back as part of his entertainments; at Mr Blyth's studio (either working on his pictures, frolicking with Zach before a lesson or holding his private academy), and at his exhibition room on the evening that he showed his “Columbus” (quarreling with a doctor over the importance of the biceps from the medical and the artistic point of view) and “The Golden Age” to a motley-classed assembly; and at Mat's abode in Kirk street on the occasion of Valentine's visit (I'd return to that chapter any day just to kick at the pile of rubbish under the table and dodge the meals as they fly from the stove to the plate).
Oh, I am so glad to have stumbled upon this gem that I now take it as my duty to talk everyone into reading Collins’ third novel, if only to regain at least for a while our human sensibilities.
August 12, 2017
First sentence: At a quarter to one o'clock, on a wet Sunday afternoon, in November 1837, Samuel Snoxell, page to Mr. Zachary Thorpe, of Baregrove Square, London, left the area gate with three umbrellas under his arm, to meet his master and mistress at the church door, on the conclusion of morning service.
Premise/plot: Mr. Valentine Blyth is an artist. While working in the country side--painting portraits of babies and sometimes painting portraits of horses--he sees a deaf/dumb girl named Mary. She's ten or so. He and his wife don't have any children, and, he pities her since she's literally the property of a circus. Mrs. Peckover (the wife of one of the clowns) is raising her as best she can but she agrees that Mr. and Mrs Blyth might make more suitable parents. She tells Mr. Blyth all she knows about Mary's (Madonna's) origins. She gives him a hair bracelet--all that is left of the mother's belongings. Many years later, Mr. Blyth welcomes into his home a Mr. Zack Thorpe. Zack has aspirations for being an artist; at the moment he's a semi bad-boy. He isn't past all hope yet, but, he's certainly not hanging out with the right people and doing as he should--if he wants to be a respectable, honorable gentleman. One day, however, he does a good deed for a stranger, a "wild" man named Mat Grice. Mat swears that he will always, always think of Zack as a brother. The two move in together, and Zack introduces him to Mr. Blyth. While a guest in Blyth's home, he becomes a bit sly and seems very shady. Thus the mystery begins...Who is Madonna's father? Who was her mother? How is Mat connected--if at all--to Madonna? What kind of man is Mat?
My thoughts: Hide and Seek is Wilkie Collins' third novel. I've not read either of his previous novels: Antonina (1850) or Basil (1852). It is his first mystery novel, I believe.
I definitely enjoyed this one. I can't say that I loved, loved, loved it. But I definitely wanted to keep reading. I did not guess everything ahead of time. But I did get a strong sense in the beginning of the novel that the romance between Zack and Madonna was doomed some way, some how. The character that surprised me most was Mat. I really had my doubts about him when he was first introduced. But by the end of the novel, I definitely wanted him to have a happy ending.
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One word about the plot, I do think it seems a bit ridiculous how Mat pieces EVERYTHING together based on two locks of hair being the EXACT SAME SHADE. Hair color does not equal a DNA test. That is all.
Premise/plot: Mr. Valentine Blyth is an artist. While working in the country side--painting portraits of babies and sometimes painting portraits of horses--he sees a deaf/dumb girl named Mary. She's ten or so. He and his wife don't have any children, and, he pities her since she's literally the property of a circus. Mrs. Peckover (the wife of one of the clowns) is raising her as best she can but she agrees that Mr. and Mrs Blyth might make more suitable parents. She tells Mr. Blyth all she knows about Mary's (Madonna's) origins. She gives him a hair bracelet--all that is left of the mother's belongings. Many years later, Mr. Blyth welcomes into his home a Mr. Zack Thorpe. Zack has aspirations for being an artist; at the moment he's a semi bad-boy. He isn't past all hope yet, but, he's certainly not hanging out with the right people and doing as he should--if he wants to be a respectable, honorable gentleman. One day, however, he does a good deed for a stranger, a "wild" man named Mat Grice. Mat swears that he will always, always think of Zack as a brother. The two move in together, and Zack introduces him to Mr. Blyth. While a guest in Blyth's home, he becomes a bit sly and seems very shady. Thus the mystery begins...Who is Madonna's father? Who was her mother? How is Mat connected--if at all--to Madonna? What kind of man is Mat?
My thoughts: Hide and Seek is Wilkie Collins' third novel. I've not read either of his previous novels: Antonina (1850) or Basil (1852). It is his first mystery novel, I believe.
I definitely enjoyed this one. I can't say that I loved, loved, loved it. But I definitely wanted to keep reading. I did not guess everything ahead of time. But I did get a strong sense in the beginning of the novel that the romance between Zack and Madonna was doomed some way, some how. The character that surprised me most was Mat. I really had my doubts about him when he was first introduced. But by the end of the novel, I definitely wanted him to have a happy ending.
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One word about the plot, I do think it seems a bit ridiculous how Mat pieces EVERYTHING together based on two locks of hair being the EXACT SAME SHADE. Hair color does not equal a DNA test. That is all.
July 13, 2021
Less sensational than Collins' other works, which I think was in some ways a strength. It didn't end in marriage either! I loved the focus on family relationships, and the characters were all well written. A more conventional novel in some ways (third person narration, domestic focus, lack of murder plots and strong heroines), and a very unique one in others (the portrayal of physical disability, emphasis on family in interesting ways, lack of conventional resolution). I enjoyed it :)
January 29, 2024
What's not to love about a mystery - especially when it was one of the first of its kind to be written. An 1860s page turner by Collins.
Read
March 2, 2025Wilkieeeeeeeeee, do better! And then he did.
September 17, 2021
Es la primera novela de Wilkie Collins que he tenido el placer de leer, y la que ha inaugurado mi 2021 con literatura clásica. Por alguna razón, no había leído mucha novela clásica hasta este momento y conocer a este autor ha sido todo un descubrimiento para mí. Aún me pregunto cómo es que me he estado perdiendo tantas historias maravillosas y tan buenos autores.
A grandes rasgos, Wilkie Collins fue uno de los más importantes escritores ingleses de finales del siglo XIX. Abogado y pintor, fue también el mejor amigo de Dickens, se le considera precursor del género policiaco. De entre sus obras mayores “La Piedra Lunar” y “la Dama de Blanco”; y de entre las menores, tenemos “El Juego del escondite”.
Es la historia de una joven sordomuda, adoptada por un generoso pintor y su mujer, sobre cuyos orígenes gira el misterio e intriga de esta novela. Alrededor de estos protagonistas están otros muy singulares, todos y cada uno de ellos ayudan a crear una historia de lo más conmovedora, intrigante y muy bien construida, pese a que no sucede nada en particular, me parece que no sobra ni una página.
Esta novela me ha parecido bellamente escrita, emotiva, se nota un conocimiento absoluto de los personajes, todos y cada uno de ellos muy esenciales. El ambiente algo oscuro, con la intriga y el misterio que se mantiene desde el comienzo hasta al final, ha casado muy bien con la ternura y el "feelgood" que deja al concluirla. Me ha encantado.
Ya forma parte de mis novelas favoritas de este año.
Totalmente recomendable y memorable.
A grandes rasgos, Wilkie Collins fue uno de los más importantes escritores ingleses de finales del siglo XIX. Abogado y pintor, fue también el mejor amigo de Dickens, se le considera precursor del género policiaco. De entre sus obras mayores “La Piedra Lunar” y “la Dama de Blanco”; y de entre las menores, tenemos “El Juego del escondite”.
Es la historia de una joven sordomuda, adoptada por un generoso pintor y su mujer, sobre cuyos orígenes gira el misterio e intriga de esta novela. Alrededor de estos protagonistas están otros muy singulares, todos y cada uno de ellos ayudan a crear una historia de lo más conmovedora, intrigante y muy bien construida, pese a que no sucede nada en particular, me parece que no sobra ni una página.
Esta novela me ha parecido bellamente escrita, emotiva, se nota un conocimiento absoluto de los personajes, todos y cada uno de ellos muy esenciales. El ambiente algo oscuro, con la intriga y el misterio que se mantiene desde el comienzo hasta al final, ha casado muy bien con la ternura y el "feelgood" que deja al concluirla. Me ha encantado.
Ya forma parte de mis novelas favoritas de este año.
Totalmente recomendable y memorable.
June 12, 2014
The best of Collins's early novels (pre-TWiW) with some very memorable characters, chief among them Mat, the mysterious figure scalped by native Americans and who wears a black velvet skullcap to hide the top is his head. There are many of the components of the sensation novels of the 1860s already in place here, and the textual game of "hide and seek" constructed by Collins is always engaging. There were a few moments in the last 100 pages, however, where the momentum of the narrative seemed to drag, and the conclusion seemed to emphasize certain characters (and not others) in a way that was less than satisfying. In the conclusion, it seemed as if Collins underestimated the interest and fascination of Madonna, the deaf girl, who figures so prominently in the novel's plot earlier on. This book is especially interesting in connection with Dickens's _Hard Times_, since we have a presentation of the circus that is more compelling (and more invested in the circus characters) than in Dickens's novel.
August 19, 2012
I have read almost everything Wilkie Collins has written. I was so excited when I found one I hadn't read. True, this being his third book, that it's not quite as good a mystery as his later work, but I found this story to be very intriguing. His character development is out of this world. His plot machinations are incredible, even in a simple "who's child is this?" story. His descriptions of the people and the settings always amaze me. I feel like I would know it if I ever stumbled upon his cities, towns and countrysides. Seeing where he started in his writings and where he took his talent with Woman in White, Moonstone, Armadale, etc., it makes me proud that I have discovered this author.
April 1, 2016
While Hide and Seek pales in comparison to the best of Collins, I found it oddly engaging - a blend of domestic comedy and melodrama. The plot is rather predictable and the ending enormously coincidental, but the touches of humor give Hide and Seek a charm entirely absent from Basil; in particular, I liked a scene in which the artist Valentine Blyth is floridly presenting his new works of art, to the sotto voce accompaniments of the two critics he's invited. Hide and Seek is not one of Collins's finest novels, but it's a pleasant diversion for those who have already read his more famous novels.
February 3, 2022
I found this book a tiny bit disappointing. Apart from the obvious problems of a silly plot and over simplified caricatures , I didn't feel that WC put his heart and soul into the book.
July 28, 2021
On the plus side, Wilkie Collins is to be commended for working so hard to not only create a far more respectful and representative depiction of disability than many authors and creators manage today, but also for actually weaving it into the fabric of the story instead of just tacking it on as an after thought. (Something which modern writers also do all the time, writing straight, white, cis-male, able-bodied, mentally healthy and neuro-typical characters and then retroactively making them disabled, gay, Trans, autistic or what have you without changing the story to reflect it.)
Also, the way that the theme of 'Sin' in the book comes full circle, with the man who'd committed (by Victorian standards) the defining sin of the story in his youth becoming so fanatically pious to make up for it that he overcompensated was a nice touch; projecting his 'Sin' onto others, seeing it behind every smile and driving them to debauchery in order to rebel against him.
However, while these pluses are worthy of comment, the bottom line is that this book is still fundamentally the same as the last Wilkie Collins *Novel that I read, "Basil." Which is to say, another short story dragged out to the length of a novella by padding it beyond the point of frustration with mind numbing domestic trivia, and packed full of the same coincidences and contrivances that test my suspension of disbelief to breaking point.
On top of which, although, as I mentioned at the beginning, Collins went out of his way to depict Mary/Madonna's 'Disability' as accurately and respectfully as possible, like so many other authors who inadvertently create 'Token' characters, he failed to give her any kind of personality, agency, stake or even role in the story beyond being the beautiful and kind hearted 'Angel' who everyone automatically adores. And although her adoptive father's mortal terror is that her 'Real' family will take her away from him one day and Collins foreshadows this possibility to the point of farce, with the woman who he constantly badgers about it effectively saying "What Could Possibly Go Wrong?" this never goes anywhere and, like the story itself, ultimately means nothing at all.
So in the end then, while (aside from Mary/Madonna,) the characters are well written and relatable, the plot itself is so utterly devoid of stakes that there just isn't enough of a reason for me to care about them or to give this book more than 2 stars.
Also, the way that the theme of 'Sin' in the book comes full circle, with the man who'd committed (by Victorian standards) the defining sin of the story in his youth becoming so fanatically pious to make up for it that he overcompensated was a nice touch; projecting his 'Sin' onto others, seeing it behind every smile and driving them to debauchery in order to rebel against him.
However, while these pluses are worthy of comment, the bottom line is that this book is still fundamentally the same as the last Wilkie Collins *Novel that I read, "Basil." Which is to say, another short story dragged out to the length of a novella by padding it beyond the point of frustration with mind numbing domestic trivia, and packed full of the same coincidences and contrivances that test my suspension of disbelief to breaking point.
On top of which, although, as I mentioned at the beginning, Collins went out of his way to depict Mary/Madonna's 'Disability' as accurately and respectfully as possible, like so many other authors who inadvertently create 'Token' characters, he failed to give her any kind of personality, agency, stake or even role in the story beyond being the beautiful and kind hearted 'Angel' who everyone automatically adores. And although her adoptive father's mortal terror is that her 'Real' family will take her away from him one day and Collins foreshadows this possibility to the point of farce, with the woman who he constantly badgers about it effectively saying "What Could Possibly Go Wrong?" this never goes anywhere and, like the story itself, ultimately means nothing at all.
So in the end then, while (aside from Mary/Madonna,) the characters are well written and relatable, the plot itself is so utterly devoid of stakes that there just isn't enough of a reason for me to care about them or to give this book more than 2 stars.
January 3, 2021
This is a curious book: the narrative voice is rather lofty and formal, and it seems like it's trying to be a mystery without working at all on that level, a surprise from Collins, whose thrillers were generally so effective. The intro here discusses his trying out a new mode, which would be a steppingstone to his more successful later novels, and that's fair. It was kind of a shock, though, to be so impatient with the characters and plot of a Collins novel, especially in the interminable period when a character laboriously works toward finding a clue, to see if it will prove someone's identify, when the readers know all about the clue, and know what he's going to find. OMG! It's like an example of how to ruin your novel's suspenseful aspects.
The characters too are fairly interesting types, but never grow very three-dimensional. For example, Zach is a good picture of a certain type of person, but I never got really invested in him. The novel is dedicated to Dickens, and while it doesn't read at all like a Dickens novel, I felt like Collins was testing some things in that direction, with some lengthy descriptions of side characters who weren't really important, as if dabbling in the kind of sketches Dickens did so well.
One thing I did like was, as often in Collins, characters with disabilities exist, and their circumstances are rendered fairly realistically, without being sensationalized. It's basically: this happens, and they live their lives. (One is a woman paralyzed by a spine disease, the other is deaf). And the pace does pick up a bit toward the end. Overall, this wasn't a really compelling read, but has some interest in depicting middle-class London manners of the time, and as a stage in Collins' development as a novelist. i certainly wouldn't start reading Collins with this one!
The characters too are fairly interesting types, but never grow very three-dimensional. For example, Zach is a good picture of a certain type of person, but I never got really invested in him. The novel is dedicated to Dickens, and while it doesn't read at all like a Dickens novel, I felt like Collins was testing some things in that direction, with some lengthy descriptions of side characters who weren't really important, as if dabbling in the kind of sketches Dickens did so well.
One thing I did like was, as often in Collins, characters with disabilities exist, and their circumstances are rendered fairly realistically, without being sensationalized. It's basically: this happens, and they live their lives. (One is a woman paralyzed by a spine disease, the other is deaf). And the pace does pick up a bit toward the end. Overall, this wasn't a really compelling read, but has some interest in depicting middle-class London manners of the time, and as a stage in Collins' development as a novelist. i certainly wouldn't start reading Collins with this one!
January 15, 2024
An early Collins, ‘Hide and Seek’ is rather an amorphous book with, unusually for Collins, an unconvincing plot, in the sense that it allows for too many dramatic coincidences and gods out of the machine. It is also an early experiment in the true detective style of fiction, giving the reader all the facts surrounding the mystery, then introducing the person who unravels the solution. This technique served Collins well even in his great classics. The villain is unmasked in the conventional way at the final denouement stage.
‘Hide and Seek' has all of Collins’s wild exuberance of style, illustrated in the persons of Zach the rebel and his equally impulsive but kindly mentor, the artist Valentine Blyth. In fact, this is one the very few Collins novels where character plays a more crucial role than event. It is partly autobiographical, which accounts for the author's magnificent portrayal of some of the principal characters, and the detail with which he attends to the others.
For a novel of its time, when maimed and deformed men and women – and children, too – were likely to be exhibited and exploited in travelling fairs and circuses, as Madonna was, Wilkie Collins exhibits a warm sympathy and compassion for people with some physical ailment, some psychological distress. Over and over in his novels appear such persons, and never in the role of villain usually assigned to them by lesser writers, more likely than not to fade out quietly after making an important contribution to the solution of a complicated tale. This novel has at least two such unfortunates.
Although not his best novel in a literary sense, it is certainly one of his more entertaining ones.
‘Hide and Seek' has all of Collins’s wild exuberance of style, illustrated in the persons of Zach the rebel and his equally impulsive but kindly mentor, the artist Valentine Blyth. In fact, this is one the very few Collins novels where character plays a more crucial role than event. It is partly autobiographical, which accounts for the author's magnificent portrayal of some of the principal characters, and the detail with which he attends to the others.
For a novel of its time, when maimed and deformed men and women – and children, too – were likely to be exhibited and exploited in travelling fairs and circuses, as Madonna was, Wilkie Collins exhibits a warm sympathy and compassion for people with some physical ailment, some psychological distress. Over and over in his novels appear such persons, and never in the role of villain usually assigned to them by lesser writers, more likely than not to fade out quietly after making an important contribution to the solution of a complicated tale. This novel has at least two such unfortunates.
Although not his best novel in a literary sense, it is certainly one of his more entertaining ones.
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