Hide and Seek

By: Wilkie Collins

Narrated by: Nicholas Boulton

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.

Public Domain (P)2022 Naxos AudioBooks UK Ltd.

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!

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.

Very entertaining!

Great story left one guessing till the very end. I thoroughly enjoy Wilkie Colin's books

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.

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?