The Dead Secret

Very Victorian - melodramatic, hyperbolic, emotional and judgmental. It all hinges, of course, on woman being a baby machine and all the restrictions that affords - do it the right way or suffer shame, degradation and ostracization. The other linchpin is class and social position - what this lets people get away with and how most members of the lower classes accepted their lots and went to great lengths to preserve the dignity and sovereignty of the upper. Sarah is the one in the latter role and boy does she go mental with her “duty” to a dead woman. Of course if she hadn’t there wouldn’t be a story and it was a fun story if not really surprising in any way. In later works, Collins creates more memorable women characters, but in show more this one they’re all pretty much vehicles to serve the plot. Uncles Joseph and Andrew are the most interesting in all their quirkiness and bad temper. Not all ends perfectly well, but well enough to be called a happy ending. show less

Confession time: The Dead Secret engaged me from beginning to end, but I’m left with the impression that I shouldn’t have enjoyed this as much as I did… it lacked the obvious intrigue of The Moonstone and the sensational fun of The Woman in White, there was altogether too much exposition (my pity towards Mr. Frankland was engendered less by his blindness, than for having to listen to his wife utter every thought that went through her head), and Sarah Leeson’s vacillating had me stifling the unchristian urge to shake her. And then, when things start to untangle themselves, Wilkie Collins whips up an accompanying maelstrom of sentimentality that would leave any cynical romance writer dumbstruck with awe. Sentimentality which I show more revelled in, by the way, I’m not going to pretend I didn’t. But it was so unsubtle as to be mildly hilarious.

And yet… for some reason I was as nosey as Rosamond to get to the bottom of the mystery in the Myrtle Room, and as terrified as Sarah Leeson lest Rosamond manage to discover the letter – and the secret – hidden therein. Because of the slow pace of the first two thirds of the book, the tension gathers like an ominous bank of black cloud. I confess I have no idea how Collins provoked this intense interest in me, except that, as usual, his characters were deliciously drawn and engaging, and, like Rosamond, if you told me to stay away from a mystery, I’d be all over it like dust on bookshelves, and completely fail to perceive the inevitable consequences of digging up old family secrets!

Should I be afraid to admit that I liked The Dead Secret? I’m never sure which of Collins’ books are the ones I’m supposed to be reading (i.e. the ones for which he is read by people who know these things in advance, I guess there was a memo at some point…). I’d better just ‘fess up and admit I liked it. And even if I hadn’t, I would have rated it at least four stars for Andrew Treverton’s final word on the subject:

Tell those two superhuman people…that I may give up my travels in disgust when they least expect it; and that I may come and look at them again – I don’t personally care about either of them – but I should like to get one satisfactory sensation more out of the lamentable spectacle of humanity before I die.

Marvellous. show less

Nothing like a good Wilkie Collins page turner for those long nights. This has all of the usual elements - suspense and mystery, grotesques and innocents, a secret drawn out to almost impossible lengths to build up the tension - all set in a carefully depicted Victorian bourgeois world. As ever, the secret is not the thing, it's the journey there. Not to give away the plot, Collins is not allowed to save the sinner, but his sympathies are clearly with love over propriety, which is as we would certainly think it should be.

Classic gothic mystery fully equipped with a creepy old manor house, suspicious-acting servants, and a sweet, unsuspecting young mistress. It dragged in parts, and I wasn’t ever really invested in the characters. So overall this one was pretty meh.

This is a really interesting story. Starts when Mrs Treverton is on her death bed and forces a confession on her maid, Sarah Leeson, with the injunction to tell Mr Treveton a secret that both have a hand in. The secret is written and instead of handing it over, Sarah hides the letter in one of the shut up rooms in the North range - the Myrtle room. After which she leaves the house and locality, visiting a certain grave on her way.
The scene then moves 15 years into the future and a wedding between Rosamund Treverton and Leonard Frankland. The lady is clearly the daughter of the house, who we last saw with her father, aged 5. It emerges that father moved away after the death of his wife. Conveniently Lenny's father bought the estate from show more Captain Treverton, which Lenny has inherited, such that Rosamund will return to her childhood home, and will bring to the marriage the 40 thousand pounds that was paid for it. A nice merging of interests. Lenny has recently become blind, so depends on Rosamund to describe things to him. He is also a bit of a snob, telling Rosamund off for her familiar manner of addressing the servants on several occasions.
The couple plan to have the north wing refurbished, and so set off on a journey to the old house. This is interrupted by an early both that causes them to pause at a small town. A nurse is required, and so the local doctor applies to the local big house - and the housekeeper volunteers her services. Then the nurse whispers to Rosamund "Don't go into the Myrtle room" and frightens her quite a bit. One has to ask why say that because the first thing that forbidding someone to do anything is one way of getting them to do it!
From there it becomes a case of how long it takes Rosamund and Lenny to determine which is the Myrtle room and what the secret it holds might be. It turns out to be quite an explosive one that significantly affects Rosamund's standing, and brings Lenny up short against his inherent snobbery.
It was a great fun listen, with the secret itself remaining hidden throughout most of the book. Several times you do wonder if the scenarios were invented in order to prolong the story, but if that can be put aside, it was a good tale well told. I thought the women in the book were a trifle hard to fathom. Sarah, for example, was quite indecisive at some times, and determined to do things the hard way at others. Rosamund struck me as being quite juvenile, very sheltered and quite naive, but I suppose that could well be an accurate reflection of the time.
There were some great fun characters in here as well though, the housekeeper clearly is worth 10 of the steward, and Uncle Joseph was a compete sweetheart. Overall, one to give a good try. show less

One of Wilkie Collins' earlier works, and quite a good example of his style. Even though "the Secret" at the heart of the story was pretty obvious nearly from the start, Collins' narrative was well worth the reading, and I very much enjoyed his method of leading the main characters to where the reader very likely had been for quite a while.

Some excellent characters here, as well. The adventures of Andrew Treverton and Shrowl would make fine reading, if done well!

Read during Summer 2004

Although a bit awash in Victorian proprieties and sensibilites, still a good page turner. The Secret wasn't hard to suss out since it has been stolen by almost every hack writer of romance fiction since but thoroughly enjoyable.