The Haunted Hotel, Wilkie Collins
The Haunted Hotel, Wilkie Collins
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The Haunted Hotel
A Mystery of Modern Venice

Author: Wilkie Collins

Narrator: Traci Svendsgaard

Unabridged: 6 hr 10 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 08/27/2009


Synopsis

When the Countess Narona meets Agnes Lockwood, the woman jilted by her fianc, she feels a great sense of foreboding. After the marriage, she moves with her husband, Lord Montbarry, to Venice. There, disowned by his family, the Lord becomes a recluse and falls fatally ill. As much as Agnes tries to forget the episode of her broken engagement, her fate and that of the Countess seem to be inextricably woven. Both are relentlessly drawn to the Palace Hotel in Venice for a final and dramatic encounter, in the room where more than past emotions resurface to haunt them. Loosely based on a case from the annals of French crime, the scene, scenery, players and conflicts, and especially the horror of this mystery come through the invention of one of our classic novelists.

About Wilkie Collins

Wilkie Collins was an English novelist who critics often credit with the invention of the English detective novel. Sergeant Cuff from Collins's novel The Moonstone became a prototype of the detective hero in English fiction. Collins's works center on mainstream Victorian domestic life. Collins liked to tackle social issues, and many of his novels contain sympathetic portraits of physically abnormal individuals. In addition to Moonstone, he is well known for his popular suspense thriller The Woman in White, No Name, and Armadale.

Collins was born in London in 1824 to William Collins, a well-known landscape painter, and Harriet Collins, the daughter of a painter. Despite a secure home, he was a small, sickly child and had a slightly deformed skull. He was educated privately and studied painting for several years. He later studied law and became a lawyer at the age of twenty-seven. Collins never practiced law, but he did put his legal knowledge to work in his crime writing.

In 1851, Collins met his lifelong friend and mentor Charles Dickens while they were pursuing a mutual interest in amateur theater. Dickens helped Collins bring humor and believable characters into his books.The two women in Collins's life-Caroline Graves, his life-long companion, and Mrs. Martha Rudd, his mistress-also greatly influenced his writing.

During the 1860s, Collins started to suffer severely from rheumatic pains and became addicted to laudanum, a form of opium. The death of Dickens in 1870 robbed him of his powerful inspiration, and his popularity declined. In 1873, he met Mark Twain and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow on a trip to the United States. Soon thereafter he wrote The Evil Genius, which was published in 1886. Collins died from a stroke on September 23, 1889.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Wendy Darling on July 21, 2016

Intriguing opening chapters (view spoiler)[this is how much: I downloaded the Serial Reader app and liked the first chapter so much I couldn't wait for the rest, so I downloaded the free Kindle copy (hide spoiler)] dreadfully dull middle, and suspenseful and exciting horror towards the end. In some ways the writing feels very dat......more

Goodreads review by Maria on October 14, 2020

Misterio! Eso es lo que pensé al leer la sinopsis de este libro. Y, misterio hay, solo que a mi parecer a tardado mucho en aparecer. Creo que hubiera sido perfecto de ser más corto, más compacto, por decir algo; uno de esos libros que mantienen al lector pegado a las páginas solo por saber qué pasar......more

Goodreads review by Amy | littledevonnook on May 06, 2016

This is my third Wilkie Collins novel and I loved it just as much as the other two. We follow the story of a family who have been told of their relative's death whilst on his honeymoon in Italy. None of them want to believe the letters confirming his death and they all begin to feel rather suspicious......more

Goodreads review by Chris on January 12, 2023

Enjoyed it more than The Moonstone, but it still was slow and plodding at times. A real gothic feel doesn't creep into the story into about 2/3 of the way into the reading, which then moves this from 2 stars to 3. This novella doesn't develop most of the characters fully, there are a few holes in th......more

Goodreads review by Krystal on October 23, 2017

Ehhhhhhhhh not sure about this one! Very slow on the suspense and intrigue and creepiness, but I was definitely suckered in by the foreshadowing. Absolutely fascinating characters, and I quite enjoyed the way the Countess was introduced, as it garnered instant sympathy for her and her troubled spirit......more