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3.0 out of 5 stars
not bad, but nothing great, Mar 28 2002
The story begins with a deathbed scene in which the dying Mrs. Treverton , racked with guilt for some mysterious secret she has been hiding, forces her maid, Sarah, to transcribe her confession and instructs her servant to give it to her husband so he will finally know the truth. Because Sarah is implicated in the secret (although we are not initially told how), she circumvents this final request, too frightened to give her master the letter, but also too frightened to destroy it, and consequently ends up locking it away in a room in a forgotten wing of the mansion. Fifteen years magically elapse, and Sarah assumes that the secret will never be discovered... until, of course, she finds out that Rosamond Treverton (the dying woman's daughter) has recently married and plans to renovate the mansion, including the forgotten wing in which the mysterious letter is hidden. While The Dead Secret is an amusing and fast read, there are some holes in the story (missing details such as the fact that we are never told why Sarah's ominous husband was so awful or what happened to him, and more troubling aspects, such as the characters' reactions to the unraveling of the secret, which, to me, were not nearly as complex or as convincing as they perhaps could have been). I'd recommend this book to someone with a penchant for Wilkie Collins - others would probably be better satisfied reading one of his greater and well-known works, such as The Woman in White.
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3.0 out of 5 stars
An early Collins work with a taste of greatness to come, Mar 5 2002
Wilkie Collins wrote "The Dead Secret" early in his career as a novelist, and his inexperience shows here--but the Collins aficionado will welcome the opportunity to see how his gifts first manifest themselves in this relatively simple story. He gathers together all the usual suspects: a wealthy family, an old house, a charming child, and the member of the house staff who harbors the secret in question. While Collins falls short in his effort to sketch an unrequited yearning (I can't go into more detail if you haven't read the book), he does a beautiful job of portraying the subtle class differences and behaviors in this particular house.
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3.0 out of 5 stars
early Collins work shows promise.., Sep 13 2000
Wilkie Collins has written some brilliant crime/mystery novels during his career, most notably The Woman in White / No Name / The Moonstone. His earlier works are almost unknown nowadays. But such obscurity is unwarrented, at least in the case of The Dead Secret.The Dead Secret tells a simple story of a mystery surrounding an untold secret of a dying wealthy woman. This woman's secret is shared only with her servant. Despite the woman's dying wish, the servant does not divulge the secret ... with unpleasent results. Eventually the secret is revealed and all is understood. The novel works well mostly because it is fast paced, and it has all the richness of a Collins novel (ie, it is well-written). No, it isn't as clever or suspenseful as Collins's later works. But Wilkie Collins fans should place The Dead Secret on their 'must read' list.
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