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Palace Hotel · Venice · Opened 1861
The Haunted Hotel
Wilkie Collins · A story series in 25 episodes ·
A lord dies in a Venetian palace. A year later the palace is a grand hotel, and every member of his family who sleeps in his room feels something no one else can.
Narrated by casting now The Countess performed by casting now Certified Human Voice
Listen along
The page moves with the story
Press play. The words follow the narrator, and the people, places and lines you can share appear beside them as they happen. When the episode ends, everything you just heard unlocks below.
Episode 1 finished · unlocked below
Next: A Confession
“It is one fact, sir, that I am a widow. It is another fact, that I am going to be married again.”
At the centre of it all
Countess Narona
“The startling contrast between the corpse-like pallor of her complexion and the overpowering life and light, the glittering metallic brightness in her large black eyes, held him literally spell-bound.”Doctor Wybrow, the first time he sees her · Episode 1
She is about to marry Lord Montbarry. She is sure she is going mad. And she is sure the kind woman he jilted will one day bring her to judgement.
What London says about her
In her own words
The episodes
Four parts, as Collins wrote them
Episode 1 will be free. After that, any episode is $0.99, or get all 25 with the Season Pass. Summaries past the episode you've heard stay blurred.
“Instead of staying at the hotel, we have hired a damp, mouldy, rambling old palace.”
Ferrari, the courier, writing home from Venice · Photograph: palaces on the Grand Canal, Carlo Naya, before 1882The building
Palace, then hotel
Tap a floor. What the palace was, and what the hotel made of it, fills in as you listen.
A palace on the Grand Canal (Palazzo Vendramin Calergi), about 1880 to 1900. Rijksmuseum, CC0. Collins never names the real palace; this is one like it.
Two minutes, lights off, sound on.
Room 14
Who slept in Room 14
The manager swore it was the best room in the house. Each guest from the family has a different night.
RoomGuestThe night
Venice, 1861
Walk the story on a map of the time
A plan of Venice printed in 1870, nine years after the story is set. Tap a pin to fly in. New places open as you listen.
Nuova pianta di Venezia, H. F. Münster, 1870. Norman B. Leventhal Map Center, Boston Public Library. Public domain.
The journey
Everyone ends up in Venice
One trip at a time: who travels, where, and why. Press Play all, or step through with Next. New journeys appear as you listen.
The Countess
Agnes
The family
Rumours about her
Theory board
What do you think happened?
A new question opens as the story reaches it. Vote, see what other listeners think, and come back: each answer is revealed when the story gets there.
Share a line
Make a card from the story
Pick a line you've heard and a picture. The card is sized for Instagram and TikTok, with a link to Episode 1, free.
“I want to know, if you please, whether I am in danger of going mad?”The Countess, to Doctor Wybrow · Episode 1
From the manager's desk drawer
Letters, telegrams and a bank note
The papers that move the story, in their own words. Each one turns up with its episode.
Who's who
The family, the Countess and the rest
People appear when you meet them.
Two voices
One narrator, and the Countess in her own words
Episodes 1 to 25
The narrator
One woman tells the whole story, every character in it.
Episodes 22 to 24
The Countess
Near the end the Countess hands over pages she has written herself. A second narrator performs them, so you hear those pages in the Countess's own voice.
About the text
A Victorian ghost story, first printed in parts
This story is in the public domain. Our recording is new, unabridged and performed by human narrators.
- Written by
- Wilkie Collins, author of The Woman in White and The Moonstone
- First published
- Belgravia magazine, 1878, in monthly parts
- Length
- 62,229 words, in four parts and a postscript
- Our text
- Project Gutenberg #170
Pictures on this page
- A nocturnal view of the Grand Canal, Venetian school, 19th century. Public domain. Source
- Palaces on the Grand Canal, Carlo Naya, before 1882. Public domain. Source
- Piazza San Marco by moonlight, Giovanni Grubacs. Public domain. Source
- Hotel Danieli on the Riva degli Schiavoni, about 1870 to 1890. Rijksmuseum, CC0. Source
- Venise, une gondole la nuit, Alonso de Parys, about 1900. Public domain. Source
- Nuova pianta di Venezia, H. F. Münster, 1870. Public domain. Source
- Madame X (Madame Pierre Gautreau), John Singer Sargent, 1884. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, public domain. Source
- Character portraits (stand-ins, not the real people): Lady Agnew of Lochnaw, Sargent, 1892; Edmond Maître, Bazille, 1869 (National Gallery of Art, CC0); Whistler's Mother, Whistler, 1871; Melancholy, Degas, late 1860s; The Gross Clinic, Eakins, 1875 (The Met, CC0); Sir Henry Irving, Bastien-Lepage, 1880; Head of a Young Man, Sargent, about 1878; Old Woman with a Rosary, Cézanne, 1895 to 1896; Dr. Pozzi at Home, Sargent, 1881; Captain Burnaby, Tissot, 1870; Count Robert de Montesquiou, Boldini, 1897; Portrait of a Man, Caillebotte, 1880. All public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.
- The Doorway, James McNeill Whistler, etching, 1879 to 1880. Public domain. Source
- Wilkie Collins, Napoleon Sarony, 1874; first edition cover, 1879. Public domain.
Midnight · The Palace Hotel, Venice · Room 13 A
