
The Moonstone
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About The Moonstone
"When you looked down into the stone, you looked into a yellow deep that drew your eyes into it so that they saw nothing else." The Moonstone, a yellow diamond looted from an Indian temple and believed to bring bad luck to its owner, is bequeathed to Rachel Verinder on her eighteenth birthday. That very night the priceless stone is stolen again and when Sergeant Cuff is brought in to investigate the crime, he soon realizes that no one in Rachel’s household is above suspicion. Hailed by T. S. Eliot as "the first, the longest, and the best of modern English detective novels," The Moonstone is a marvellously taut and intricate tale of mystery, in which facts and memory can prove treacherous and not everyone is as they first appear. Sandra Kemp’s introduction examines The Moonstone as a work of Victorian sensation fiction and an early example of the detective genre, and discusses the technique of multiple narrators, the role of opium, and Collins’s sources and autobiographical references.
Reader guide at a glance
Use these edition facts and spoiler-light notes to decide whether this book fits your mood, time, and preferred reading experience.
- Audience
- Adult/general
- Commitment
- Standalone or self-contained
- Estimated reading time
- 13.5 hours at about 40 pages per hour
- Length
- Long read
- Best for
- Readers seeking classic victorian mysteries
Why readers are finding The Moonstone
The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins, published in 1999, is a 532-page book for readers who prefer to browse by the experience of a story, not only by its sales category. Its strongest discovery signals include Classic Victorian Mysteries.
Each book can belong to several shelves at once, making it easier to move from a broad genre to a specific trope, mood, community recommendation, or series. Use the linked shelves above to compare related books, then choose print or audiobook from the edition information on this page.
- Print ISBN
- 978-0-140-43408-8
- Published
- 1999
- Pages
- 532





