The Project Gutenberg EBook of Hide and Seek, by Wilkie Collins

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Title: Hide and Seek

Author: Wilkie Collins

Release Date: April, 2005 [EBook #7893]
Posting Date: July 31, 2009

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HIDE AND SEEK ***

Produced 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,