Hide and Seek: Unabridged

Written by Wilkie Collins

Narrated by Caroline Collins

Hide and Seek (1854) is a novel with an intricate plot, in two parts: the history of "Madonna" Grice and Matthew Grice's discovery of her. Mary Grice is courted and seduced by a man. Mary's sister, Joanna drives the pregnant, unmarried Mary from the family home. Mary gives birth to a daughter and dies miserably, attended only by performers from a travelling circus. Martha, wife of one of the clowns, adopts the baby (also Mary), who becomes a circus performer and is struck deaf and dumb after a riding accident. The circus owner exploits her. To rescue Mary, Martha takes her to the home of a minister. There a painter adopts her, and she acquires the nickname Madonna. The painter's friend, Zack, admires her. Zack defends a man who turns out to be Matthew (Mat) Grice, Mary Sr.'s brother. Mat has spent decades wandering, but returns home after making his fortune. His next concern is to find out the fate of his family.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Audioliterature
• Release date: Dec 31, 2017

Wilkie Collins

William Wilkie Collins was born in London in 1824, the son of a successful and popular painter. Collins himself demonstrated some artistic talent and had a painting hung in the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition in 1849, but his real passion was for writing. On leaving school, he worked in the office of a tea merchant in the Strand but hated it. He left and read law as a student at Lincoln's Inn but already his writing career was flowering. His first novel, Antonina, was published in 1850. In 1851, the same year that he was called to the bar, he met and established a lifelong friendship with Charles Dickens. While Collins' fame rests on his best known works, The Woman in White and The Moonstone, he wrote over thirty books, as well as numerous short stories, articles and plays. He was a hugely popular writer in his lifetime. Collins was an unconventional individual: he never married but established long term liaisons with two separate households. He died in 1889.