The Moonstone - Wilkie Collins Reviews

'The Moonstone, a priceless yellow diamond, is looted from an Indian temple and maliciously bequeathed to Rachel Verinder. On her eighteenth birthday, her friend and suitor Franklin Blake brings her gift to her. That very night, it is stolen again. No one is above suspicion, as the idiosyncratic Sergeant Cuff and Franklin piece together a puzzling ...  Read the complete review

Introduction I've been meaning to read this book for ages, but kept putting it off - I do most of my reading on public transport and so tend to prefer something reasonably light - and a book written in 1868 isn't really my idea of light reading. But as a fan of crime fiction, I felt that I had to read the book that has been classed by many as ...  Read the complete review

The moonstone is more of a detective story than anything else and is set in the 1840's. The story is about a valuable yellow diamond that was stolen from the forehead of a god. Over the years many people have owned the stone and whoever owns it is said to be cursed. A man comes to own the stone and he bequeaths it to his sisters daughter, ...  Read the complete review

Set mostly in 1848 and 49 (and written just 20 years later) The Moonstone is an astonishingly good detective novel, commonly acknowledged to be one of the first ever written. In his preface Mr Collins states that his intention in writing the book was to "trace the influence of character on circumstances". This goal is achieved to ...  Read the complete review

Considered to be a forerunner to the detective novel genre, the Moonstone will not disappoint you when compare to more recent works such as Agatha Christie novels which i personally find quite entertaining and enjoyable to read. The story revolves around the mysterious disappearance of a magnificent diamond, and attempts to recover it, or ...  Read the complete review

Having read a number of ‘classics’, I find it difficult to comprehend why many people do not consider Wilkie Collin’s “The Moonstone” the epitome of the ‘genre’. After all, it has all the ingredients for a classic literary feast, and is indeed worthy of being identified as a timeless and elegant ...  Read the complete review

I certainly would not have thought that this was a classic by any accounts. This Victorian Era detective novel is a fun read and it definitely encapsulates the attitudes and social customs of that time. I certainly didn’t become enthralled by the book and it was more to do with the fact thtat I was on holiday’s at the time ...  Read the complete review

There are quite a few classics that I consider among my ‘favourites’, and this is definitely one that appears near the top of the list. It is a detective novel that is so gripping that I did nothing else but read it continuously and finished it in one day. I have never read a book that is comparable in its ability to intrigue you and ...  Read the complete review