Hide and Seek

Hide and Seek, by Wilkie Collins

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Title: Hide and Seek
Author: Wilkie Collins
Release Date: April, 2005 [EBook #7893] [This file was first posted on
May 31, 2003] [Most recently updated: November 28, 2003]
Edition: 10

Language: English
Character set encoding: US-ASCII
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, HIDE AND
SEEK ***

E-text prepared by by James Rusk

HIDE AND SEEK
by Wilkie Collins

TO
CHARLES DICKENS,
THIS STORY IS INSCRIBED,
AS A
TOKEN OF ADMIRATION AND AFFECTION,
BY HIS FRIEND,
THE AUTHOR.

PREFACE TO THE REVISED EDITION
This novel ranks the third, in order of succession, of the works of
fiction which I have produced. The history of its reception, on its first
appearance, is soon told.

Unfortunately for me, "Hide And Seek" was originally published in the
year eighteen hundred and fifty-four, at the outbreak of the Crimean
War. All England felt the absorbing interest of watching that serious
national event; and new books--some of them books of far higher
pretensions than mine--found the minds of readers in general
pre-occupied or indifferent. My own little venture in fiction necessarily
felt the adverse influence of the time. The demand among the
booksellers was just large enough to exhaust the first edition, and there
the sale of this novel, in its original form, terminated.
Since that period, the book has been, in the technical phrase, "out of
print." Proposals have reached me, at various times, for its
republication; but I have resolutely abstained from availing myself of
them for two reasons.
In the first place, I was anxious to wait until "Hide And Seek" could
make its re-appearance on a footing of perfect equality with my other
works. In the second place, I was resolved to keep it back until it might
obtain the advantage of a careful revisal, guided by the light of the
author's later experience. The period for the accomplishment of both
these objects has now presented itself. "Hide And Seek," in this edition,
forms one among the uniform series of my novels, which has begun
with "Antonina," "The Dead Secret," and "The Woman In White;" and
which will be continued with "Basil," and "The Queen Of Hearts." My
project of revisal has, at the same time, been carefully and rigidly
executed. I have abridged, and in many cases omitted, several passages
in the first edition, which made larger demands upon the reader's
patience than I should now think it desirable to venture on if I were
writing a new book; and I have, in one important respect, so altered the
termination of the story as to make it, I hope, more satisfactory and
more complete than it was in its original form.
With such advantages, therefore, as my diligent revision can give it,
"Hide And Seek" now appeals, after an interval of seven years, for
another hearing. I cannot think it becoming--especially in this age of
universal self-assertion--to state the grounds on which I believe my
book to be worthy of gaining more attention than it obtained, through

accidental circumstances, when it was first published. Neither can I
consent to shelter myself under the favorable opinions which many of
my brother writers--and notably, the great writer to whom "Hide And
Seek" is dedicated--expressed of these pages when I originally wrote
them. I leave it to the reader to compare this novel--especially in
reference to the conception and delineation of character--with the two
novels ("Antonina" and "Basil") which preceded it; and then to decide
whether my third attempt in fiction, with all its faults, was, or was not,
an advance in Art on my earlier efforts. This is all the favor I ask for a
work which I once wrote with anxious care--which I have since
corrected with no sparing hand--which I have now finally dismissed to
take its second journey through the world of letters as usefully and
prosperously