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Aeneas Press edition Victorian

The Haunted Hotel

A Mystery of Modern Venice

by Wilkie Collins 1824–1889

The book, and the century it came out of.

A countess with no fortune and an unreadable face marries an English lord who dies at Venice, and the palace where it happened is now a hotel, with one room nobody sleeps in twice. Collins wrote it in 1878, deep into the laudanum, and it is his most frankly supernatural book — a detective plot that gives up and lets the ghost win. Illustrated with 60 full-page plates — paintings by Cooke, von Alt and Rotta among them.

In the year 1860, the reputation of Doctor Wybrow as a London physician reached its highest point.
The first sentence of The Haunted Hotel
A note on this edition

The Haunted Hotel, by Wilkie Collins, complete and unabridged. Spelling and punctuation follow present-day American usage; the sentences, the paragraphs and the voice are the author’s, word for word.

It was written in another era and may carry attitudes a reader today will find dated. They are kept for the sake of the work and do not reflect the views of this house.

The edition
Format
Ebook
Extent
about 192 pages
Reading time
about 4 hours
Illustrations
Full-page plates, credited
Text
Complete, unabridged
Language
en
This edition
2026
ISBN
9785486162893
The plates

60 paintings are bound into this edition

Six of them are shown here, taken from the volume itself. Each is reproduced full page and named with its painter and year.

Sunset Sky Salute And San Giorgio Maggiore, Edward William Cooke
Sunset Sky Salute And San Giorgio Maggiore Edward William Cooke 1859
View of Amsterdam, 1879, Cornelis Springer
View of Amsterdam, 1879 Cornelis Springer 1878
The Shipwreck of ‘Young Daniel’, Raymond Monvoisin
The Shipwreck of ‘Young Daniel’ Raymond Monvoisin 1859
The Rooms of Ivan Khrutsky’s Estate, Ivan Khrutsky
The Rooms of Ivan Khrutsky’s Estate Ivan Khrutsky 1855
The Mourning of László Hunyadi, Viktor Madarász
The Mourning of László Hunyadi Viktor Madarász 1859
Jardins de la Villa Borghèse vus depuis la Villa Médicis à Rome, Jean-Jacques Henner
Jardins de la Villa Borghèse vus depuis la Villa Médicis à Rome Jean-Jacques Henner 1859
The setting

A page from this edition

Not a mock-up: this page is taken from the finished volume. The ornament above the chapter belongs to its shelf and to no other, the opening letter is set as a drop capital, and the plate below carries the name of the painter and the year.

A page of The Haunted Hotel as set for this edition
The opening of a chapter
A page of The Haunted Hotel as set for this edition
A page where a plate falls

Both photographed from the finished volume.

Colophon

The Haunted Hotel, issued in this edition by Aeneas Press in 2026 on the Gothic & Horror shelf. Newly set, with the ornament of its series above each chapter and a drop capital on the opening page. Illustrated with full-page plates, each named with its painter.

Published as an ebook and not issued in print by this house; it carries one ISBN, 9785486162893, and is supplied worldwide. This edition — its setting, its ornament, its cover art, and the selection and attribution of its plates — © 2026 Aeneas Press.

Before you buy

Questions readers ask

Is this the whole of The Haunted Hotel?
Yes — complete and unabridged. Nothing is cut, condensed or paraphrased. This is the book, not a summary of it.
What exactly did you change?
The spelling and the punctuation follow present-day American usage. Wilkie Collins's sentences are untouched — same words, same order, same rhythm.
Are the pictures really in the book?
Yes. The edition carries full-page plates bound into the text, each one named with its painter and the year it was made. Six of them are shown on this page.
How long is it?
About 192 pages, which is roughly about 4 hours of reading.
What do I actually get?
An illustrated ebook with its own ISBN, sold worldwide. One file, yours to keep, readable on any device.
If this one suits you
The Haunted Hotel
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