Adam Bede vs The dead secret: Which Should You Read?
Both live on shelves: Illegitimate children in fiction, Illegitimate children, England in fiction, Social life and customs, Fiction
Adam Bede
Adam Bede is a hardy young carpenter who cares for his aging mother. His one weakness is the woman he loves blindly: the trifling town beauty, Hetty Sorrel, whose only delights are her baubles-and the delusion that the…
vs
The dead secret
“'WILL she last out the night, I wonder?'”
The Dead Secret is a novel published by Wilkie Collins, first in 1857 as a series in Charles Dickens Household Words weekly magazine and later the same year as a book. Much like his later novel The Woman in White…
The verdict
- Ratings are close across the board — any is a safe pick by score.
- The dead secret is the quickest read — about 4 hours vs 10 for Adam Bede.
- Adam Bede has the widest readership — 26751 ratings behind its score.
- Adam Bede reaches further in scholarship and criticism — cited 204 times.
How to choose
Scores by source
| Adam Bede | The dead secret | |
|---|---|---|
| Goodreads | 3.8 (26751) | 3.7 (3028) |
| Hardcover | 3.7 (21) | 3.9 (7) |
| Google Books | 5.0 (1) | — |
| Apple Books | 4.5 (91) | 4.0 (78) |
Reception
| Adam Bede | The dead secret | |
|---|---|---|
| Ratings | 26751 | 3028 |
| Editions | 543 | 167 |
| Citations | 204 | 11 |
| Film adaptations | 1 | 1 |
| Want to read | 25619 | 3355 |
| Reading it now | 1461 | 251 |
| Written reviews | 1464 | 330 |
| Wikipedia attention | 3869 | 2166 |
| Pages | 548 | 265 |