• The Evil Genius

  • By: Wilkie Collins
  • Narrated by: John Bolen
  • Length: 11 hrs and 14 mins
  • 3.6 out of 5 stars (99 ratings)

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The Evil Genius  By  cover art

The Evil Genius

By: Wilkie Collins
Narrated by: John Bolen
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Publisher's summary

Wilkie Collins' most financially successful novel, The Evil Genius, opens with a jury determining the fate of a sea captain whose ship allegedly facilitated a diamond theft. The story develops into a powerful novel of Victorian private life, including deception, adultery, and divorce.

An 'evil genius' is threatening to rip apart the fabric of the Linley home. Who is it and why? Is it the orphaned young governess for whom the father lusts; the brother-in-law who appears to help everyone, but often succeeds in making things worse; the meddling mother-in-law whose good-intentioned interferences lead to greater heartache; the disloyal father, or perhaps the unassuming daughter?

©2000 Tantor Media Incorporated

What listeners say about The Evil Genius

Average customer ratings
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  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars

Ruined by inept narration

Lest any reader be deceived by the title of this book, the "evil genius" refers to a general evil spirit or bad influence among the characters, rather than one malevolent person. This is a fairly well-written Victorian melodrama. Interest in the storyline is impeded by narration which is so ridiculously inept, so comically bad, as to induce amazed laughter. Personally, if it were my job to choose a narrator for a novel set in Victorian England and Scotland, I would not choose an American reader with a speech impediment. The Scottish characters sound like an amalgamation of a Swedish Chef, Charlie Chan and the Lucky Charms Leprecaun. The female characters are voiced in breathy falsetto. Every word ending in "ing" is mispronounced. "Singing while walking in the evening" sounds like "Singeen while walkeen in the eveneen." Amazingly, the story was interesting enough for me to accept and overlook these annoyances.
Far better novels available from Audible with similar themes and plotlines comprise The Forsyte Saga, by (Nobel Prize winner) John Galsworthy. The narration of these novels is far better as well.

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12 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    1 out of 5 stars

Bad reader

I really enjoy Wilkie Collins' Vistorian potboilers; they're full of sly humor and mysterious doings, and his characterizations are great. Too bad I couldn't get past the reading on this one. As said by previous reviewer, women's voices are cringeworthy. So are the rest. Weird accents and a delivery that makes me suspect that reader was seeing the book for the first time. Had to give up.

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12 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    2 out of 5 stars

Story is fine, but not a mystery.

I think the description is misleading. The novel begins as if it will be a mystery (like The Moonstone or The Woman in White)but the "mystery" only introduces the main character and is never explored after that. Enjoyable nevertheless, except for the narrator whose women's voices made me cringe.

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10 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    2 out of 5 stars

EVIL GENIUS

liked the story. The reader was strange though. First of all, I would have preferred it be read by an English man instead of an American one. The reader changed his voice for the characters in a way that was distracting and sometimes ridiculous. He pronounced Edinburgh wrong and it's that kind of simple thing that makes you lose confidence in the reader. His intonation was often off, too. So, though I enjoyed this simple tale, I would have much preferred it to be read by Simon Vance or Martin Jarvis.

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7 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    4 out of 5 stars

Great Victorian Melodrama. Bad narrator.

This novel is quite a surprise. It's stars with the trial and conviction of a sea captain. But the novel is not about that sea captain at all. His fate is quickly dealt with and the novel deals with his daughter, Sydney Westerfield and how her life is affected by what happens in the aftermath of her father's conviction, death in prison, her mother's remarriage and how she abandons her own daughter when she decides to start a new life in America. So contrarily to what I was expecting from Wilkie Collins, this novel is neither a crime story nor a thriller. It's in fact a victorian melodrama about marriage, temptation, infidelity and divorce. But I was not disappointed as to the quality of the writing and the flow of the story. The characters are well drawn and are truly 3 dimensional. What makes them so real is the fact that they all are simply human, no one being truly evil or entirely good. The best chararcter is the mother-in-law, Mrs Prestly, with her acid tongue and her feeling of always knowing better. The author depicts a difficult situation: Herbert Linley .mainly for compassionate reasons, brings home a young and beautiful governess (Sydney Westerfield) for his young daughter Kitty. As soon as this new arrival joins the Linley household, emotions run high. Sydney feels incredibly grateful to Mr. and Mrs. Linley for the opportunity they haven given her and she quickly develops a strong bond of affection with Kitty. The mother-in-law thinks that her daughter is taking a foolish risk by letting a young and beautiful woman live in her house and that she represents a threat to the Linley marriage. Mrs Linley is torn between the confidence she has in her husband and the frienship she feels for Sydney and the constant forebodings of her mother. I'll let you discover the rest. Wilkie Collins has a surprisingly modern view of the situation and looks at each character with compassion and without passing harsh judgments on their actions. The evil genius of the title is about discovering who is the person who truly contributes to destroy the Linley family. All in all, this story is a great treat.

But the narration is sadly lacking. The novel deserves so much better. i agree with other reviewers that the narrator has an incongruous American accent for most of the book. His interpretation of a Scottish accent is so outlandish, it's almost comical at times. And the womens' voices are quite atrocious - too high pitched and in a annoying falsetto. But in spite of the bad narration, I still enjoyed the book and would recommend it. Read it or wait for a better audio version. Simon Vance and Juliet Stevenson, just to name two examples, would do such a fantastic job at making this novel shine

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2 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    1 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Worst narration ever

This was such a good novel but the terrible narration with the awful accents and voices was very distracting.

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1 person found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    4 out of 5 stars

Why Audible Kids?

Why is this on Audible for kids? It’s a nice Victorian story that I, an adult, enjoyed but I can’t see how it’s classified “for kids.” I’m not a prude but the theme is adultery and forgiveness from the perspective of the adults. There is a child character but nothing is told from her perspective. I just think it’s miscategorized.

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1 person found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    1 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

WORST NARRATOR EVER

Atrocious voice acting - detracted from the brilliant story. This recording should be destroyed and the recording should be redone. If I were Mr. Collins's relative I would sue.

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1 person found this helpful

  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    1 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    3 out of 5 stars

Good story, with reservations; the worst narrator

I will first get my review of the narrator out of the way. He was the worst ever. Maybe I’ve heard someone worse in one of those free public domain audiobooks read by volunteer narrators (some of those are surprisingly good). The fact that this guy is an actor is shocking. When he read the narrative parts, it was fair, but his voices and attempts at British (or Scottish) accents were absolutely intolerable (the Scottish was less annoying than the English). His attempt at Kitty was horrid. Well, you get the point. And on top of all that, he didn’t know how to pronounce Edinburgh (he said Edinberg - ugh). Now to the story. The story is good and well-written, and much is relevant even to today, as far as characters and emotions and human relations. But the values - attitudes towards divorce in particular - are quite dated, and yet in parts of the world and in certain communities (and religions) they are not so different. Many, many women suffer in bad marriages or in loveless marriages due to the attitudes seen in this book. Many women are pained by the attitude expressed here about men’s “sexual frailty”, excusing behavior that would never be forgiven if a woman did it, certainly not in those times. Double standards are still quite common, but should be condemned, not condoned. All of this about the values expressed in the book bring me to my last point. Of course 19th century literature has outdated values, outdated attitudes towards women and women in outdated roles (though Sydney as a secretary is actually progressive for that time). But at the opening of this recording, it says it is Audible Kids. Maybe for mature teens, and best with a discussion about divorce, marital relationships, etc. But this is not a kids’ story! I wonder if whoever put it in the Audible Kids list heard the story.

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1 person found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

great story

This is a fun little story and would make a great movie: the characters are well developed, interesting and multi-faceted, the story has twists and turns and it all ends happily ever after. It’s funny too. Maybe I’ll try my hand at screenplay-writing…. “and the Oscar for best adaptation of a novel goes to….”

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1 person found this helpful