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The Moonstone

The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins
By: (1824-1889)

A young woman who inherits a beautiful diamond known as The Moonstone on her eighteenth birthday becomes the center of this mystery story. The diamond is a gift from an uncle who once served as an army officer in British India. She proudly wears the jewel on her dress at her birthday party that night. The precious stone has a dark and sinister history, which will have a terrible impact on her life and the lives of those around her.

You're about to read what's been termed the very first real detective story in the English language. The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins is the book which is deemed to have set many of the traditions for the generic detective story. Elements like murder in an English country house, plenty of suspects, a famous detective who is called in to solve the crime, a complicated motive and a final twist in the tale as the perpetrator is revealed. The Moonstone was serialized in 1868 in Charles Dickens' magazine All The Year Round.

William Wilkie Collins was an aspiring law student when he first met the great Charles Dickens. Encouraged by the famous author, Collins began to contribute short stories and longer novels to Dickens' magazines. The two became good friends and often coauthored many pieces in these magazines, read, discussed and traveled together and shared a great literary and personal friendship. However, by the time The Moonstone was written, Collins was suffering from serious ill-health and became addicted to opium, which he began taking to get relief from excruciating pain. The Moonstone was actually a break from the kind of stories Collins had written to that point. The Victorian “sensation” novel genre was all the rage in England at the time, but with The Moonstone, the focus began to shift to mystery, crime and detection. The effects of colonization, looting of local treasures and oppression of the natives are all underlying themes in The Moonstone.

As a forerunner of the great traditions of detective fiction, The Moonstone is a gripping, interesting and fascinating read for whodunit fans of all ages.


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Reviews (Rated: 5 Stars - 7 reviews)

Reviewer: - October 6, 2020
Subject: The moonstone
One of the few books that invite you to read it again and again.
Reviewer: - September 30, 2018
Subject: the moonstone
Great story but too many narrators are being used in this production. its very hard to keep pace with the amount of different voices...i had to give up the story on the seecond period because the russian ladies accent was just too strong and unintelligible for the story to be comfortably listened to. great shame
Reviewer: - January 11, 2017
An extremely long book, but very interesting. I don't recall any reader that was so bad I couldn't continue listening. I thought maybe the accent caused some of the words to be mispronounced.
Reviewer: - April 19, 2016
Subject: Loved this book!
Long book but I loved it! Moving on to Robinson Crusoe....smile! The book is told by different characters so the various narrators reflect that -some are better than others but overall it is a wonderful story -great detective stuff, humor, romance, and insight into English life in that era, and how much is still the same today! Loved it!
Reviewer: - August 20, 2014
The first part is well read. In the second part, a non-native speaker takes over. Too many pronunciation mistakes and a very heavy accent, so I had to quit at the beginning of the second part.
Reviewer: - May 18, 2014
Part 24 - so many mistakes in pronunciation!!! it was real torture to listen to!
Reviewer: - March 17, 2013
The readers who are not native english speakers.


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