Collins, Wilkie, 1824-1889 / 2008-06-27 00:00:00

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.
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