4.5 stars, rounding up, for this 1868 Victorian-era mystery, often considered the first English-language detective novel. Wilkie Collins spins a literary web that starts out slowly but then inexorably pulls you in; I finished the last half of the book in one extended readathon. He has a gift for writing as vastly different characters, who each take a turn telling or writing their part of the story, and a droll, sometimes very sarcastic sense of humor.

In 1799 a British soldier steals a large yellow diamond from a Hindu statute in India, ruthlessly killing three Indian men protecting the statue, and earning himself a curse from one of them in the process. He gets a bad reputation as a result and is shunned by his extended family in England. So when he dies, he leaves the Moonstone to his niece Rachel (whose mother refused to receive him as a guest in her home), knowing he's leaving her not only a 30,000 pound fortune in the jewel, but also a load of potential trouble: there's not just the amorphous curse, but three Indian men who have been following the owners of the Moonstone for years and are determined to steal it back, one way or another.

Rachel's relative Franklin Blake is entrusted with bringing her the diamond for her 18th birthday, and falls in love with her as he gets to know her over several days. The Indians are lurking, looking for their chance to grab their gem. Rachel wears the Moonstone at a dinner party the night of her birthday, puts the jewel in a drawer in her bedroom ... and the next morning it's gone. The odd thing is, it looks like an inside job. The bumbling local police are of little help, and even the renowned outside detective, the estimable Sergeant Cuff, is unable to bring the case to a satisfactory conclusion, though part of the problem is that several people aren't cooperating with him.

Wilkie Collins doesn't try all that hard to hide the villain in the tale, but the "how" is fascinatingly revealed over the last half of the book. I don't think Wilkie was particularly interested in giving readers all of the clues; this isn't really a mystery that is supposed to be solved by readers before the big reveal, in my opinion (the final reveal of exactly what went down that fateful night pretty much comes out of left field, though there are a few clues in the story). He's more interested in telling an exciting story, and he pulls just about everything into the mix: a massive jewel, star-crossed love, people hiding things for their own reasons, a servant with a highly suspicious past, dangerous quicksand, and a loyal servant with an amusing and rather touching devotion to Robinson Crusoe, which he treats as a sort of Bible. Better him than Rachel's cousin Drusilla Clack, an annoying Christian evangelist given to preaching and leaving tracts with titles like "Satan in the Hair Brush" around people's homes!

This proto-detective novel does get a little slow at times - Victorian authors typically weren't in a hurry to tell their stories, especially when they were serialized in magazines, like this one was. But once the storyline really started moving along in the second half I thought it was a great read. Bonus points for handling the Indian subplot in a manner that's unusually sensitive for books written in the Victorian age.

“‘Take a drop more grog, Mr. Franklin, and you’ll get over the weakness of believing in facts! […]’”

This advice on the part of Mr Betteredge, the butler, is excellent for anyone willing to read Wilkie Collins’s The Moonstone and being too much given to measure fiction by their own experience. Much of what happens in connection with the Moonstone mystery is definitely far-fetched, and a glass of grog or whisky will help you muster up the necessary degree of generosity. And if you still believe in facts, why! at least you have enjoyed a dram of something.

They say that The Moonstone, which was published in 1868, is the first genuine detective novel, even though to my knowledge it was Edgar Allan Poe, who was the first to send a private detective onto the literary stage – Auguste Dupin in The Murders in the Rue Morgue (1841), and so Collins’s Sergeant Cuff might not be the first sleuth in world literature, but with his melancholy bearing and his interest in roses, which leads him into long conversations with Lady Verinder’s gardener, he is at least the first memorable one. Apart from that, Collins might have been the first author to have written an entire novel around a criminal case, and one that never has a single length but manages to maintain a high degree of suspense at that. It is also clear that Charles Dickens, Collins’s friend, was probably induced by the immense success of this novel to try his hand at a murder mystery, The Mystery of Edwin Drood, which would never be finished by the Inimitable due to his untimely death. [1]

The Moonstone has lots of things that will be familiar to avid readers of detective novels, and Collins may well be credited with their invention, e.g. a manor as the scene of a crime and one (or more) people staying there as having something to do with it, and an abundance of clues leading in all sorts of directions. Many seemingly unimportant details mentioned by Mr. Betteredge, who gives the first account of the crime, will later prove meaningful and important to the solution of the mystery, but lots of other clues will lead you astray. At the heart of the story is the theft of a gem, the eponymous Moonstone, that has a sacred meaning in the Hindoo religion and that was robbed from a Hindoo site by a dubious Englishman, Colonel Herncastle, brother to Lady Verinder. Feeling snubbed by his sister, the Colonel bequeaths the jewel to Lady Verinder’s daughter Rachel, in the hope that it may prove a curse to the young woman’s life, a hope that apparently fulfils itself when the diamond is stolen on Rachel’s birthday and suspicion falls on a variety of people, even on Rachel herself. The investigation, started by Rachel’s cousin, and lover, Franklin Blake, will cause even more woe than the loss of the valuable jewel itself, resulting, among other catastrophes, in the suicide of one of the servants in the household. You may frown at the solution of the mystery, as it unfolds itself in the last quarter of the novel, because it depends on many unlikely coincidences but then another glass of grog might bring you around in no time, and you will find that you have just read a fascinating, if slightly lurid, detective novel.

The Moonstone is also remarkable for the variety of perspectives that Collins uses in his narration because there is no omniscient narrator but a handful of eye-witnesses are giving their accounts of various parts of the story, which will face you with unreliable narrators and different viewpoints and which gives Collins the opportunity to use different styles. Collins shows that he has a soft spot for social outsiders like the maid Rosanna Spearman, who is a reformed criminal and who suffers from a physical deformaty, or the doctor’s assistant Ezra Jennings, whose gypsy origins make him a dubious character in the eyes of his prejudiced contemporaries. The author himself clearly does not condone the stereotyped thinking of his English fellow-people but treats these characters with respect and dignity, which is also true of the three Indian men who try to recover the diamond and who are not merely depicted as representatives of some exotic evil.

As to Rosanna, for instance, we have Betteredge muse on her sad lot and come up with the idea that she is the same age as his own daughter Penelope and that if Penelope had faced the same drawbacks in her early life, she might have ended up the same way as Rosanna did. In her letter to Mr. Blake, Collins has Rosanna write things like this,

”Suppose you put Miss Rachel into a servant’s dress, and took her ornaments off? […] I can’t expect you to read my letter, if I write it in this way. But it does stir one up to hear Miss Rachel called pretty, when one knows all the time that it’s her dress does it, and her confidence in herself.”

So, it’s the dress and the privileges that make a lady, after all, isn’t it? There are also other social mores that Collins slyly attacks in this novel, especially Christian hypocrisy – in the character of Miss Clack – or in sentences like the following, which can be found in Mr. Betteredge’s account: ”The other women took to their Bibles and hymn-books, and looked as sour as verjuice over their reading — a result, which I have observed, in my sphere of life, to follow generally on the performance of acts of piety at unaccustomed periods of the day.”, or, even more daringly, ”I have myself (in spite of the bishops and the clergy) an unfeigned respect for the Church”.

Unlike Dickens, Collins also has rather interesting female characters at the centre of his stories: In this case, there is Miss Rachel, who might have come over as quite spoilt and bloody-minded to the average contemporary reader but who definitely has her own principles and code of honour and who has her heart in the right spot, even though her behaviour might puzzle you at first.

The Moonstone was the first book I ever read by Wilkie Collins, more than twenty years ago, and it raised my expectations as to Collins quite high – with the deplorable effect that my second encounter with this author proved a disappointment and weaned me from him for the next fifteen years or so, but eventually I came to realize that there is a lot more to discover about this friend of Dickens’s.

[1] Interestingly, the mutual inspiration Dickens and Collins drew from each other might have led Collins to come up with a character like Sergeant Cuff in the first place since it was in his novel Bleak House (1852/53) that Dickens, who has always been greatly interested in modern police methods, made use of a highly efficient and unerring police detective by the name of Bucket.

3.5 I love The Woman in White, but I didn't connect to Rachel or Franklin at all. I wish Collins had convinced me of the moonstone's allure before it was stolen because it was hard to stay invested in the crime over a gem for the length of the novel.

Perhaps it is not surprising that I managed to guess the 'who', if not the how of this prototype mystery. What may be somewhat of a surprise is that this recognition did not make the book tedious, nor did it become a plodding step-by-step towards inevitability like many mysteries are.

Like The Virginian, this predecessor of a genre never seems to fall into the same traps as its innumerable followers. Indeed, with both these books, the focus itself becomes something entirely different than the obsession it inculcates in others.

Though this book certainly contains a mystery, a set of clues and twists, and a brilliant detective, the focus is not on these but on the characters themselves. Firstly, there is the fact that the book is narrated in sections by different observers and participants. Secondly, there is the fact that the chief mover of the entire series of events is never the mystery itself, but the maddening effect that the unknowns and miscommunications have on the personal relationships surrounding the events.

The characters themselves, chiefly in the case of the narrators, are such discrete and believable characters that part of the enjoyment of the book becomes an appreciation for the author's knowledge of human behavior and ability to represent wholly different mindsets without any lingering authorial voice intruding.

It is not only the psychology of the characters and their movements which are represented here, but also the little shifting falsities of how they see themselves and how they are seen by others, none of which represent a truthful opinion, but all of which flow from the way people generalize one another.

Collins succeeds greatly at the old authorial adage that one should show instead of tell, as innumerable details and observations build up to give us a more thorough view. He does have somewhat of an easier time of this due to his method, it may be noted. By using constant and somewhat unreliable narrators, he may be seem to be telling, but in truth these opinions represent more about the narrator than about those whom they cast their judgment upon.

Also like The Virginian, Collins carries with him a strong and concise voice bred of that Victorian generation for whom Austen was the venerable master. He was also, it may be noted, a close friend to Dickens.

Another pleasantry with both authors is that they retain a certain humility, such that they never seek out more lofty heights than their prose may bear up. This is the reason their stories each stand as the foundation of pulp movements, whose writers were more concerned with writing to their own ability than to reaching for far-flung achievements they might or might not be equal to.

However, while those later authors attached themselves so much to archetype and rare coincidence to produce the strength of their work, the earliest hands to touch the page were fueled by human emotion and character. There is some sense of stereotypical characterization in The Moonstone, but it is tempered by extending even the joke characters a surfeit of humanity.

That being said, the main joke character in this book nearly drove me down in the few chapters she stood as narrator. It was not because she was too ridiculous, not because she was annoying, nor too cliche. She was simply too accurate to a type of person I loathe to meet or to spend a free minute with; namely: the self-righteous, proselytizing old maid.

This was the curious tangent which passed between this text and 'The Screwtape Letters', which I was also reading at the time. It was especially marked in comparison to the earlier narrator, who though simple, retained a charm and a welcoming humility in his various shortcomings.

It always seems a shame to look at the first movement of a genre, be it Wister's, Collins', or Tolkien's, as those creators who later move to take up the torch miss the point: that independent of the magic or mystery or gunfight being the main event, what keeps and impresses the reader is the emotional content, psychology, and strength of the pure writing, itself. Collins stands in good stead with the other innovators in this: that his work is a fine novel that happens to be a mystery, and not the other way 'round.

P.S. Some may point out Poe as originator of the mystery, or even point to older cases. This is an old debate, which I will not enter into, suffice it to say that Collins is the first example of a mystery novel, as Poe believed one should never write something which takes more than a sitting to read. I'm glad Collins didn't feel this way, but it's probably good that Poe limited himself. Collins also originates most of the Mystery tropes in this work, which is a tally in his favor.

The best thing about a classic book is that the author dissects out, and lays before you bare, all the thoughts and feelings of the characters. This not only helps you understand the story better, but it lets you make a bond with the characters; all irrespective of whether the genre of the story is crime or drama or romance. If you'll read The Moonstone, you'll come across how the author describes the French, German and Italian aspects of an important character's personality, this in itself goes to show that the author has a very acute understanding of the human nature.

Wilkie Collins was a gifted author, indeed! The way of writing, in the form of narratives of different persons, is really captivating. The Moonstone became a little slow in the middle, but overall the pace was quite satisfactory.

Some people call this book the first detective fiction to be written, though I don't know whether there is any truth in this, but The Moonstone is definitely one of the best detective books of the pre-Conan era.

3.5 stars-- I'm not quite sure what to think of this book. I think it suffers in my estimation for 2 things beyond its control: my pre-existing adoration for THE WOMAN IN WHITE and my voracious reading of the mystery genre that this book helped spawn. I think this book was never going to live up to TWIW in my estimation. And the fact that this is one of (if not THE) first detective novels means that twists, character archetypes, settings, etc. that were innovations in this book feel a bit worn thin to a reader well acquainted with them. That said, Collins' humor still sparkles through and that was probably the element in this book that was most engaging for me.

Wow, the last hundred pages or so, wow. This book is said to be the first mystery ever written, certainly not like mysteries we have read in the last 100 years.

I loved how this long story evolved, the story of the missing Moonstone being told first by the senior butler of the family (referred to as the house steward), Gabriel Betteredge. His engagement with the reader, talking directly to us, love, loved it. Only in the books written in the mid 1850’s do you see this style.

Oh, then the writing in this classic:

“the one thing to be done was to clap the extinguisher upon Penelope’s curiosity on the spot”

“Different women have different ways of riding the high horse. My late Mrs. Betteredge took her exercise on that favourite animal whenever I happened to deny her anything that she had her heart set on.”

There is so much more in my notes, however need to reflect a bit this morning. Oh, also any lovers of Robinson Crusoe, you will love the references to that classic book too by Mr.Betteredge. It has been so worth the last two weeks of my reading time.

4+

Λίγα λόγια προς το παρόν και θα εξηγηθώ περισσότερο, μόλις τακτοποιήσω τις σκέψεις στην κεφάλα μου.

Για να διαβάσεις και να απολαύσεις ένα καλό αστυνομικό μυθιστόρημα, πρέπει να είναι αστυνομικό. Εμ διόρθωση! Γράψε λάθος.

Για να διαβάσεις και να απολαύσεις ένα καλό αστυνομικό μυθιστόρημα, πρέπει να μην είναι αστυνομικό. Εμ διόρθωση! Γράψε λάθος.

Ένα καλό μυθιστόρημα που μπορείς να απολαύσεις και να στοχαστείς πάνω σ' αυτό, να μαλώσεις με το συγγραφέα του και τον εαυτό σου, ανήκει στην Τέχνη και τον άνθρωπο, είναι τέτοιο που σαν τα μαλλιά του Έζρα Τζένινγκς, περιπλέκονται ακανόνιστα η Λογοτεχνία με τη Ζωή. Ένα κακό μυθιστόρημα έχει το γνώρισμα να ανήκει σε είδη και σε τύπους, το έχουμε ανάγκη για να μπορεί να ταξινομηθεί και να αξιολογηθεί με ένα τρόπο, διαφορετικά θα κατέληγε σαν όλα εκείνα τα βιβλία που γυρνούν αξιοθρήνητοι τύποι για να τα πουλήσουν μόνοι τους στα βιβλιοπωλεία και τα σπίτια, σαν τους παλιούς πλασιέδες, για μια υστεροφημία που τους έχει κοστίσει περισσότερο σε χρήμα και λιγότερο σε ουσία. Το καλό βιβλίο ακόμα και όταν σε προκαλεί να αντιδράσεις, δεν έχει ανάγκη να το πουλήσει κάποιος, πουλιέται μόνο του.

Ας πούμε αυτό: κόλλησε πολλές φορές, το παράτησα, έκανα άλλα πράγματα, χάζεψα άλλα βιβλία, όμως δεν το άφησα. Δε θα συγχωρούσα στον εαυτό μου να παραμελήσω ένα συγγραφέα που μου άνοιξε πολλούς δρόμους με το Άρμαντεϊλ και επιβραβεύτηκε η προσπάθεια. Είναι ένα καλό και ποιοτικό μυθιστόρημα ψυχαγωγίας. Δε θα το συγκρίνεις ποτέ με ένα απ' τα έργα που ανήκουν στην Υψηλή Φιλοσοφία, όπως χαρακτήρισε ο Καμύ, μια ειδικού τύπου κατηγορία Λογοτεχνίας, που δεν έχει καμία σχέση με τα χαρακτηρισμένα ως φιλοσοφικά αφηγήματα, ή φιλοσοφικές παραβολές. Πέρασα απ' τα 2 αστέρια, στα 3,5 και από 'κει στα 2,5, ώστε να καταλήξω στο 4+. Λυπάμαι που η επιμέλεια της Μέδουσας ενώ ήταν τόσο προσεκτική, υπήρξε τόσο άτσαλη στο ορθογραφικό χτένισμα.

Κάτι ακόμη πριν κλείσω αυτές τις πρώτες σκέψεις: Για όποιον το έχει διαβάσει, ο δεύτερος πρόλογος του συγγραφέα, δεν είναι προσπάθεια για να εισπράξει συμπάθεια, ή οίκτο. Ο Κόλλινς δεν είχε τέτοια ανάγκη. Αυτό που δηλώνει είναι πραγματική υπερηφάνεια που τα κατάφερε στην υπερπροσπάθεια του και ειλικρινή κι ασυγκράτητη ευγνωμοσύνη που ο κόσμος αγάπησε το αποτέλεσμα. Υπήρξε μια εποχή που δεν υπήρχαν Enbrel ή Humira, δεν ήταν καν διαδεδομένη η χρήση της κορτιζόνης με τέτοιο εντοπισμό, που μοιάζει αυτή η περίοδος με κάθε περίπτωση που δεν έχει γίνει διάγνωση κι ακόμη είσαι στο έλεος μεσοβέζικων μέτρων, ακινητοποιημένος κι ανεπαρκώς αυτοεξυπηρετούμενος. Γι' αυτό και έργα σαν αυτό και τη Χαρά της ζωής, του Ζολά στέκονται σε μια περίοπτη θέση.

Και ακόμη αυτό, 150 χρόνια πριν, 30 αφού γράφτηκε το Die Traumdeutung, 35 αφού γράφτηκε το Drei Abhandlungen zur Sexualtheorie, 44 αφού γράφτηκε το Zur Einführung des Narzißmus κάνει το Φρόϋντ να μοιάζει με παιδί που έβαλε το χέρι του στο τάπερ, πριν αποφανθεί ότι έχει μέσα κουλουράκια.

Και επίσης, απ' όσο γνωρίζω είναι η πρώτη φορά παγκοσμίως που έγινε αναφορά σε εκείνη την αρνητική επίπτωση του καπνού στην οποία βασίζεται η κερδοφορία των καπνοβιομηχανιών.

Επιπλέον, είναι ο πρώτος και μάλιστα στην πουριτανή Αγγλία, που γραπτά αναγνωρίζει αυτή την κατηγορία αντρών, που στην εποχή μας χαρακτηρίστηκαν ως metrosexual.

Εκπληκτικές ψυχογραφίες και αντιδράσεις πιστά αληθοφανείς. Ειδικά για την περίπτωση της Κλακ κρίμα που δεν πρόλαβε να τη διαβάσει ο Σοπενάουερ, αλλά μάλλον την είχε υπ' όψιν του ο Νίτσε. Με αυτό δεν υπονοώ κανενός τύπου αντιγραφές, αλλά τη συνέχεια στην παγκόσμια τοιχοποιία. Και ο τρόπος που ο συγγραφέας απ' το ρόλο του Μπέτερεντζ, του ευγενικού αυτού οικονόμου που πιστεύει με όλη του την ψυχή πως μόνο για όσο η καρδιά υπερισχύει της λογικής οι δεσμοί διατηρούνται, περνάει στην ψευδεπιφατική θρησκόληπτη και κατά βάση νιχιλίστρια Κλακ, είναι σχεδόν συγκλονιστικός. Με την περίπτωση του Φράνκλιν ο συγγραφέας δίνει τη δική του ερμηνεία στο γιατί ρεαλισμός και όχι νατουραλισμός. Με την κουτσή Λούσυ βρίσκουμε την ωραιότερη υπεράσπιση που θα μπορούσε να υπάρξει, σε όλους εκείνους τους ανθρώπους που τους απέρριψαν και εισέπραξαν αδιαφορία και συμβατικότητα, στους τρόπους των άλλων. Έστω κι αν αυτό δεν ήταν αληθινό. Στα δε εξωτερικά χαρακτηριστικά του Έζρα Τζένιγγκς κανείς δε μπορεί να αρνηθεί ότι ο τρόπος που σμιλεύονται, αιτιολογεί το λόγο της αυθόρμητης αντιπάθειας των άλλων ( δεν εννοώ το χρώμα της επιδερμίδας ).

Δεν εντόπισα κανένα απ' τα δεδομένα εκείνα που θα έλυναν ένα γρίφο, αλλά έκανα αυτό που μου ζήτησε ο συγγραφέας, χρησιμοποιήσα τα πρώτα δέκα κεφάλαια για να καταλήξω στο ποιος είναι τι και αυτό αρκεί, γιατί πραγματικά τα γεγονότα εξαρτώνται απ' το ποιόν εκείνων που επενέργησαν.

Και κάτι ακόμη εξ' ίσου αν όχι περισσότερο σημαντικό από άλλα: Πριν μερικά χρόνια, ένας πολύ δραστήριος φίλος μου, αρκετά μεγαλύτερος αλλά ντούρος, αθλητικός, κινητικός πέρασε ένα δριμύ επεισόδιο αποπληξίας. Η πρώτη φορά που συναντηθήκαμε, υπήρξε σοκαριστική για 'μενα. Δε θα μπορούσε να περιγραφεί καλύτερα και να ζωντανέψει στα μάτια μου απ' τον τρόπο που αναδύεται το σκηνικό της συνάντησης του Φράνκλιν με τον Κάντυ.

Θα μπορούσα να γράψω πολλά ακόμη, θα ήθελα να βάλω κάποια υπέροχα αποσπάσματα, νομίζω όμως πως τελικά δε θα το κάνω και ότι δε θέλω ούτε να συμπληρώσω άλλα πράγματα. Ίσως μόνο αυτό, ο συγγραφέας γίνεται τόσο πειστικός μέσα στους ρόλους που είναι πολύ εύκολο να νομίσεις ότι οι απόψεις και οι θέσεις και στάσεις είναι δικές του και τελικά να χρειαστεί να γυρίσεις πολλές σελίδες πίσω, όταν πια έχεις μπει μέσα σε ένα άλλο χαρακτήρα, για να αναθεωρήσεις κάτι. Κι ίσως αναγνωρίσεις την ευφυία αυτού του ανθρώπου, που για το ποιόν του συγγραφέα σου μιλάει κάτω απ' την επιδερμίδα και αφήνει τους χαρακτήρες να αλληλεπιδρούν. Θα του αναγνωρίσεις επίσης πιστεύω, ότι αποφεύγει την αχρείαστη δραματικότητα.

Τέλος, όπως στο πρότυπο του Γκαμποριό, οι αστυνομικοί δεν διακρίνονται σε έξυπνους ιδιωτικούς και βλάκες δημοσίους υπαλλήλους, αλλά σε παρατηρητικούς, δραστήριους και επιμελείς αναλυτές των εμπειριών τους και σε βιαστικούς υπαλλήλους του βιβλίου. Αυτό δεν τους κάνει απαραίτητα πρωταγωνιστές, αλλά τουλάχιστον ακόμη κι αν μας παρασέρνουν στα λάθη τους, το κάνουν γοητευτικά και με αληθοφάνεια.

Το κύριο μέλημα του συγγραφέα είναι να μας χαιρετήσει με την άποψη πως η Λογική και το Συναίσθημα δε μπορούν να είναι μονόδρομοι, αλλά δυο πλευρές του εσωτερικού διαλόγου, στις οποίες αναγνωρίζεται ίση μεταχείριση κι όταν η μια γίνεται υποκειμενική, η άλλη αναπόφευκτα πρέπει να είναι αντικειμενική, για να συνεχίσει να είναι ο κόσμος, ανθρώπινος κόσμος κι όχι κόσμος των ατόμων.

While storms have raged, while at high tide waves have hit the sea wall with such force that the house shook, I have been spending the dark evenings re-reading ‘The Moonstone’, secure in the knowledge that out house was built not long after the publication of Wilkie Collins’ wonderful book and so it has survived many storms and was so solidly built that it should survive many more.

I think that ‘The Moonstone’ is pitched at the perfect point between crime fiction and sensation fiction, and it makes me wish that I could have been a Victorian reader, so that I could have read it when it was new, original and innovative, and so that I could read it with my mind uncluttered by more than a century of books that have come since then, and a few that I can think of that clearly have been influenced by this wonderful tale.

I am sure that Conan-Doyle read this book; I suspect that Victoria Holt had it in mind when she named her novel ‘The Shivering Sands’; and I am quite certain that Hercule Poirot’s retirement to the country to grow vegetable marrows was a tribute to Seargeant Cuff and his wish to see out his days growing roses ….. but I’m getting ahead of myself.

I’m not sure that ‘The Moonstone’ has stood the test of time as well as some of Wilkie Collins’ other work, but it is still a fine entertainment, and among the most readable of classics.

The moonstone – a fabulous Hindu diamond – is seized – some would say stolen – during the storming of Seringapatam. The taker of the diamond believes it to be cursed, and takes serious steps to ensure his own safety and the safety of his jewel. In his will he leaves it to his niece, the daughter of his estranged sister. And so the moonstone is given to Rachel Verinder on her 18th birthday. That night the moonstone disappears. The case is investigated by Seargeant Cuff, of the new detective force, and an extraordinary sequence of events will unfold before the truth of what happened that night, and the fate of the jewel, is made clear.

The tale is told by a series of narrators, because this is an account of the moonstone compiled some time after the events it describes by an interested party. He brought together family papers and accounts of events that he asked those who were best placed to report, to create a continuous narrative.

That device works wonderfully well, controlling what the reader knew without the reader having to feel manipulated, and adding depth to the characters by viewing them through different eyes. Fortunately the narrators are nicely differentiated. I loved Gabriel Betteredge, the indispensable steward to the Verinder family, a man of firm opinions who was nonetheless a model servant, who believed that all of the answers to life’s problems lay in the pages Robinson Crusoe. But I heartily disliked Miss Clack, a pious, sanctimonious cousin, blind to the feelings and concerns of others, but insistent that they must read her tracts. And I was fascinated by Ezra Jennings, a doctor who had been dragged down by his addiction to opium, but who was grateful for the chances he had been given and ready to play his part in uncovering the truth. And there were others; every voice, every character, was utterly believable.

Even more interesting than the narrators though were two women, at opposite ends of the social spectrum, who both chose not to speak out. Rosanna Spearman was a servant, and though I had reasons to doubt her, I could see that she was troubled and I feared for her. I nearly dismissed Rachel Verinder, as a spoilt madam, but in time I came to see that I had misjudged and underestimated with her.

The atmosphere was everything I could have hoped for, and the settings were wonderfully created. I especially loved the scenes set out on the treacherous ‘Shivering Sands’. And the story twisted and turned, and sprang surprises, very effectively. I remembered that broad sweep of the story from the first time I read ‘The Moonstone’, many years ago, but I had forgotten just how events played out, but even when I remembered it didn’t matter. Wilkie Collins was such a wonderful, clever storyteller that I was captivated, from the first page to an afterword that was absolutely perfect.

I loved almost everything, but I do have to say that the story is a little uneven, and that no character is as memorable as Marion Halcombe and Count Fosco in ‘The Women and White.’ But then, few characters are.

This is a very different pleasure. maybe a more subtle pleasure. And definitely a rattling good yarn!

4.5 rounded up . I must admit that I'd completely ruled out the "who" in all of this early on in the story, so at least Collins kept me guessing over 400+ pages and gave me a nice jolt at the end. That's always a good thing. A little farfetched though plausible, and a little on the draggy side in parts, but I had a great time with it and I loved the switching narrative style.

Anyone who has not yet read The Moonstone really ought to pick up a copy, not solely because it is considered by some to be "The first and greatest of English detective novels" (à la T.S. Eliot on the front cover), but more to the point, it is downright fun to read. It's also a novel I read as a teen when I caught a case of Collinsmania and made my way through everything he'd ever written that I could get my hands on at the time. As I said to someone, although I read it as a teen, coming back to it, I realized that I hadn't really read it. Now that I have, I can't recommend it highly enough. Bottom line -- I think it's a brilliant book.

I go into a bit of plot, etc. at the crime page of my reading journal, otherwise, let me just say that there is a LOT happening in this book beyond and underneath the mystery itself, but I won't go into any of that here because The Moonstonehas been studied inside and out, upside and down, picked apart, analyzed, and has provided many scholarly works that can be found on one's own. I can see how it might frustrate a number of modern detective-fiction readers and seem a bit tedious at times, but it had the completely opposite effect on me: every moment of free time I could possibly grab during a day was devoted solely to this novel. And while his The Woman in White will always remain my favorite Collins novel, I loved this book.

The first detective story written in the English language, and it holds up. Although I had my suspicions, I didn't know exactly whodunnit or how, right up to the end. In fact, if you removed the sexist and racist bits (a product of its time, eye-rolling encouraged), the book would seem quite modern.

[Aside] Thank god authors no longer describe female characters as the sillier, weaker sex at every opportunity. Or automatically place suspicion on every non-white character. Or have characters who scream when they see someone with a "swarthy" appearance. You know, as those silly women tend to do.

So, in addition to being the first detective story, it also shows how far we have come and maybe how far we still need to go.

I greatly enjoyed reading this story which was told through various characters and I liked them all with the exception of miss Clack since I found her character unsympathetic to say the least.
The narratives which I enjoyed most were Betteredge's, Mr. Bruff's and Fraklin Blake's.
The narrative given by Betteredge was the one which amused me at many points and I found his relationships with the family members, his daughter and his employees very endearing and I liked his personality!
The most intriguing narrative was for me the one from Franklin's point of view and he was the character I liked most!
In the story we encounter many different characters that provoke the reader's sentiments each for different reasons like Rosanna with her past and unrequited love or Rachel Verinder with her sacrifice to protect a person she cares about or Ezra Jennings that despite his misfortunes who remained a wonderful person!
The mystery is also very intriguing and the resolution in my opinion very clever.
All in all I really loved the story as a whole and can't wait to read another story written by Wilkie Collins!