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The Dead Secret: A Novel and Little Novel: Miss Bertha and the Yankee
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Manufacturer: Classic Publishers
Author: Wilkie Collins
Publisher: Classic Publishers
Average Customer Rating:
Our Price: $49.00
You Save: $ 49.00 ( 50% )
Usually ships in 24 hours
Manufacturer: Classic Publishers
Author: Wilkie Collins
Publisher: Classic Publishers
Average Customer Rating:
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The Dead Secret: A Novel and Little Novel: Miss Bertha and the Yankee Description
Binding: Library Binding
EAN: 9781582010373
ISBN: 1582010374
Label: Classic Publishers
Manufacturer: Classic Publishers
Number Of Items: 1
Book Pages: 590
Publication Date: 1999-01
Publisher: Classic Publishers
Studio: Classic Publishers
EAN: 9781582010373
ISBN: 1582010374
Label: Classic Publishers
Manufacturer: Classic Publishers
Number Of Items: 1
Book Pages: 590
Publication Date: 1999-01
Publisher: Classic Publishers
Studio: Classic Publishers
Editorial Review of The Dead Secret: A Novel and Little Novel: Miss Bertha and the Yankee
A mystery of unrelenting suspense and penetrating characterization, The Dead Secret explores the relationship between a fallen woman, her illegitimate daughter, and buried secrets in a superb blend of romance and Gothic drama. Reprinted here in the only critical edition available, is the text of the first edition, including Collins's preface and revisions. A superb introduction relates the text to Collins's love of the theatre, and previous and subsequent works.
Customer Reviews of The Dead Secret: A Novel and Little Novel: Miss Bertha and the Yankee
Customer Rating:
Review Summary: Pleasant Memories and Literary Pleasure
Review: I found this book to be a beautiful, well-written distraction - a great rainy-day-long-weekend-nothing-better-to-do-but-relax-and-read read. I loved the characters, the unfolding story, the atmosphere and the solemn, albeit joyful ending. Uncle Joseph...and the surly Andrew Treverton, characters whom you might regard as one-dimensional give the novel dimension and feeling.
A book I have borrowed and will part with soon enough, I think it is something I would eventually like to add to my own library. It is a novel that nourishes... the pages often fly by without you noticing. I put off reading the end because I didn't want it to end. What else can one say? If you like Collins - and this is perhaps one of the better earlier novels - I'd say jump in. (I still have to read "The Moonstone" and "The Woman in White"...getting there...things to do, books to read... if there was world enough and time....).
That's that.
Customer Rating:
Review Summary: Entertaining as usual
Review: The more I read of Wilkie Collin's impressive body of work, I come to believe he is the greatest of the largely forgotten writers of the 19th century. While I certainly enjoy some of the Jane Austen novels being dramatized on PBS, I think this book and certainly the fantastic Woman in White would captivate modern viewers. Many of the scenes in this novel are very theatrical and I think would look translate great to television. Maybe his revival will come someday! Like his other books and stories, The Dead Secret tells the story of a "fallen woman", a favorite topic of many Victorian authors, but many of the themes here, such as the loss and transformation of identity, are strikingly modern. This is not Collin's best novel by far it is no less entertaining and a book that is very hard to put down. Plus Mozart's Don Giovanni (Collins' favorite composer) plays a small role in the novel, which is always a treat!
Customer Rating:
Review Summary: The unraveling of a family secret is a great read but average for Collins
Review: The story begins with Mrs. Treverton on her deathbed who charges her maid, Sarah Leeson, with revealing a castastrophic secret that they share to Mr. Treverton. But after Mrs. Trevorton dies, Sarah can not face revealing this devastating secret to her master and decides to hide the letter containing the secret in an uninhabited part of the house. After she flees, the story picks up 15 years later observing Mrs. Treverton's newly wed daughter, Rosamund, and her husband, Leonard. The Secret hidden by Sarah holds bad tidings for them, and the rest of the novel revolves around how this secret is finally revealed. The big difference between this and Collins' better novels is the lack of characterization in this one. Although Sarah attracts the interest and sympathy of the reader and Uncle Joseph provides a nice dose of innocence and heartfelt kindness, the rest of the characters fail to strike an emotional chord. The servants are also not nearly as interesting as they are in Collins' masterpiece, The Moonstone. Knowing that the secret letter would negatively affect the happy couple instills the reader with a feeling of dread and anticipation, but once the secret was revealed, the story was fairly predictable. If you've read some of Collins' other novels and enjoyed them, you'll probably like this one too. Just don't expect anything jaw-dropping compared to his better known novels like The Moonstone or The Woman in White. Collins was a fantastic writer, who's sadly now commonly neglected.
Customer Rating:
Review Summary: An appetizer for further greatness to come!
Review: Mrs Treverton, who is not expected to live through the night, summons her lady's maid, Sarah Leeson, to her side. Their hushed conversation reveals that, many years ago, Sarah and Mrs Treverton conspired together to cover up a devastating family secret. With her death fast approaching, Mrs Treverton demands the expiation of that guilt and attempts to force Sarah to reveal the details of the secret to her husband by giving him the hand-written confession which they prepare and sign together that night. While the timid, brow-beaten Sarah is unable to muster the mental courage to destroy the note, she somehow pulls her thoughts together and finds the strength to hide the note in a long abandoned room in Porthgenna mansion in order to keep the secret hidden from her master. When she sees the stricken Captain Treverton weeping, mourning his wife's death by hugging their infant daughter, Rosamond, and asking the baby for her comfort in dealing with his grief, Sarah realizes that the hypocrisy necessary to stay at Porthgenna mansion while the note was hidden there is beyond her and she flees into the night!
The story resumes some fifteen years later as an adult Rosamond, newly married to her loving squire, Leonard Frankland, inherits Porthgenna mansion and they make plans to implement a program of renovations which will restore the estate to its former glory. A series of coincidences result in Sarah encountering Rosamond and coming to the horrifying realization that the secret is in imminent danger of being brought to light! At that point, the messy stuff hits the fan and the balance of this wonderful classic novel is spent unearthing the sordid details of the secret and its emotional and practical impact on each of the characters that Collins has so lovingly and skillfully constructed.
"The Dead Secret", the last of the so-called apprentice novels that Collins wrote before he vaulted to fame as an acknowledged master of English literature with the publication of "The Woman in White" and "The Moonstone" is a superb example of the stereotypical Victorian sensation novel - Sarah Leeson, the timid, socially naïve, weak-willed and fundamentally flawed female victim of a selfish conspiracy that revolves around the hidden details of Rosamond's birth and inheritance; as an actress, an occupation in Victorian England of suspect virtue and credibility, Mrs Treverton is subject to vicious contempt from the misanthropic Andrew Treverton, her brother-in-law, who shares rooms with the equally spiteful Shrowl; a well to do woman with a dark secret that may or may not involve a criminal act; an inheritance in question; tragedy, irony, drama, outrageous comic relief and even a ghost! What more delicious menu could the most discriminating reader of Victorian fiction hope for?
Paul Weiss
Customer Rating:
Review Summary: An early Collins work with a taste of greatness to come
Review: Wilkie Collins wrote "The Dead Secret" early in his career as a novelist, and his inexperience shows here--but the Collins aficionado will welcome the opportunity to see how his gifts first manifest themselves in this relatively simple story. He gathers together all the usual suspects: a wealthy family, an old house, a charming child, and the member of the house staff who harbors the secret in question. While Collins falls short in his effort to sketch an unrequited yearning (I can't go into more detail if you haven't read the book), he does a beautiful job of portraying the subtle class differences and behaviors in this particular house.
Review Summary: Pleasant Memories and Literary Pleasure
Review: I found this book to be a beautiful, well-written distraction - a great rainy-day-long-weekend-nothing-better-to-do-but-relax-and-read read. I loved the characters, the unfolding story, the atmosphere and the solemn, albeit joyful ending. Uncle Joseph...and the surly Andrew Treverton, characters whom you might regard as one-dimensional give the novel dimension and feeling.
A book I have borrowed and will part with soon enough, I think it is something I would eventually like to add to my own library. It is a novel that nourishes... the pages often fly by without you noticing. I put off reading the end because I didn't want it to end. What else can one say? If you like Collins - and this is perhaps one of the better earlier novels - I'd say jump in. (I still have to read "The Moonstone" and "The Woman in White"...getting there...things to do, books to read... if there was world enough and time....).
That's that.
Customer Rating:
Review Summary: Entertaining as usual
Review: The more I read of Wilkie Collin's impressive body of work, I come to believe he is the greatest of the largely forgotten writers of the 19th century. While I certainly enjoy some of the Jane Austen novels being dramatized on PBS, I think this book and certainly the fantastic Woman in White would captivate modern viewers. Many of the scenes in this novel are very theatrical and I think would look translate great to television. Maybe his revival will come someday! Like his other books and stories, The Dead Secret tells the story of a "fallen woman", a favorite topic of many Victorian authors, but many of the themes here, such as the loss and transformation of identity, are strikingly modern. This is not Collin's best novel by far it is no less entertaining and a book that is very hard to put down. Plus Mozart's Don Giovanni (Collins' favorite composer) plays a small role in the novel, which is always a treat!
Customer Rating:
Review Summary: The unraveling of a family secret is a great read but average for Collins
Review: The story begins with Mrs. Treverton on her deathbed who charges her maid, Sarah Leeson, with revealing a castastrophic secret that they share to Mr. Treverton. But after Mrs. Trevorton dies, Sarah can not face revealing this devastating secret to her master and decides to hide the letter containing the secret in an uninhabited part of the house. After she flees, the story picks up 15 years later observing Mrs. Treverton's newly wed daughter, Rosamund, and her husband, Leonard. The Secret hidden by Sarah holds bad tidings for them, and the rest of the novel revolves around how this secret is finally revealed. The big difference between this and Collins' better novels is the lack of characterization in this one. Although Sarah attracts the interest and sympathy of the reader and Uncle Joseph provides a nice dose of innocence and heartfelt kindness, the rest of the characters fail to strike an emotional chord. The servants are also not nearly as interesting as they are in Collins' masterpiece, The Moonstone. Knowing that the secret letter would negatively affect the happy couple instills the reader with a feeling of dread and anticipation, but once the secret was revealed, the story was fairly predictable. If you've read some of Collins' other novels and enjoyed them, you'll probably like this one too. Just don't expect anything jaw-dropping compared to his better known novels like The Moonstone or The Woman in White. Collins was a fantastic writer, who's sadly now commonly neglected.
Customer Rating:
Review Summary: An appetizer for further greatness to come!
Review: Mrs Treverton, who is not expected to live through the night, summons her lady's maid, Sarah Leeson, to her side. Their hushed conversation reveals that, many years ago, Sarah and Mrs Treverton conspired together to cover up a devastating family secret. With her death fast approaching, Mrs Treverton demands the expiation of that guilt and attempts to force Sarah to reveal the details of the secret to her husband by giving him the hand-written confession which they prepare and sign together that night. While the timid, brow-beaten Sarah is unable to muster the mental courage to destroy the note, she somehow pulls her thoughts together and finds the strength to hide the note in a long abandoned room in Porthgenna mansion in order to keep the secret hidden from her master. When she sees the stricken Captain Treverton weeping, mourning his wife's death by hugging their infant daughter, Rosamond, and asking the baby for her comfort in dealing with his grief, Sarah realizes that the hypocrisy necessary to stay at Porthgenna mansion while the note was hidden there is beyond her and she flees into the night!
The story resumes some fifteen years later as an adult Rosamond, newly married to her loving squire, Leonard Frankland, inherits Porthgenna mansion and they make plans to implement a program of renovations which will restore the estate to its former glory. A series of coincidences result in Sarah encountering Rosamond and coming to the horrifying realization that the secret is in imminent danger of being brought to light! At that point, the messy stuff hits the fan and the balance of this wonderful classic novel is spent unearthing the sordid details of the secret and its emotional and practical impact on each of the characters that Collins has so lovingly and skillfully constructed.
"The Dead Secret", the last of the so-called apprentice novels that Collins wrote before he vaulted to fame as an acknowledged master of English literature with the publication of "The Woman in White" and "The Moonstone" is a superb example of the stereotypical Victorian sensation novel - Sarah Leeson, the timid, socially naïve, weak-willed and fundamentally flawed female victim of a selfish conspiracy that revolves around the hidden details of Rosamond's birth and inheritance; as an actress, an occupation in Victorian England of suspect virtue and credibility, Mrs Treverton is subject to vicious contempt from the misanthropic Andrew Treverton, her brother-in-law, who shares rooms with the equally spiteful Shrowl; a well to do woman with a dark secret that may or may not involve a criminal act; an inheritance in question; tragedy, irony, drama, outrageous comic relief and even a ghost! What more delicious menu could the most discriminating reader of Victorian fiction hope for?
Paul Weiss
Customer Rating:
Review Summary: An early Collins work with a taste of greatness to come
Review: Wilkie Collins wrote "The Dead Secret" early in his career as a novelist, and his inexperience shows here--but the Collins aficionado will welcome the opportunity to see how his gifts first manifest themselves in this relatively simple story. He gathers together all the usual suspects: a wealthy family, an old house, a charming child, and the member of the house staff who harbors the secret in question. While Collins falls short in his effort to sketch an unrequited yearning (I can't go into more detail if you haven't read the book), he does a beautiful job of portraying the subtle class differences and behaviors in this particular house.