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    The Moonstone
    The Moonstone
    The Moonstone
    Audiobook18 hours

    The Moonstone

    Written by Wilkie Collins

    Narrated by James Langton

    4/5

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    About this audiobook

    Called "the first and greatest of English detective novels" by T. S. Eliot, Wilkie Collins's The Moonstone is a masterpiece of suspense.

    A fabulous yellow diamond becomes the dangerous inheritance of Rachel Verinder. Outside her Yorkshire country house watch the Hindu priests who have waited for many years to reclaim their ancient talisman, looted from the holy city of Somnauth. When the Moonstone disappears, the case looks simple, but in mid-Victorian England no one is what they seem, and nothing can be taken for granted.

    Witnesses, suspects, and detectives each narrate the story in turn. The bemused butler, the love-stricken housemaid, the enigmatic detective Sergeant Cuff, the drug-addicted scientist-each speculate on the mystery as Collins weaves their narratives together.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherTantor Media, Inc
    Release dateNov 2, 2010
    ISBN9781400189441
    Author

    Wilkie Collins

    William Wilkie Collins (1824–1889) was an English novelist, playwright, and author of short stories. He wrote 30 novels, more than 60 short stories, 14 plays, and more than 100 essays. His best-known works are The Woman in White and The Moonstone.

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    Reviews for The Moonstone

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    • 4/5
      Apparently the first modern (1868) detective story. Collins sets up the suspense with numerous twists and turns and a number of surprises.
    • 4/5
      Well after being a mystery aficionado for years it was about time I read the seminal piece. It was well worth it. It just flowed. It was not at all hard to read like much of the literature written at that time by Collins' contemporaries like Dickens.
    • 4/5
      A really good page turner of a book, where you don't really know what's going to happen next. The premise may be a little obscure and hard to believe, but the writing and the characters are excellent. Mr. Collins was a lesser known contemporary of Charles Dickens.
    • 3/5
      It is very interesting to see the difference in this Victorian mystery - one of the first straight mystery novels - and detective fiction today. The shifting perspectives keeps the story from bogging down. But, there is still way too much detail for modern day readers. It is understandable that Collins had to lay things out much plainer for his audience - they hadn't been raised on detective fiction and CSI.

      I would recommend this book, though, to readers that love detective fiction (if only because it was one of the very first in the genre) and to anyone that loves Victorian fiction. To readers that are trying to read 1001 Books To Read Before You Die, it is worth the read. I can't say that about all of them.
    • 4/5
      19th century epistolary novel about the theft and subsequent search of a alleged cursed diamond. The story and its mystery is very engaging, but, like most serialized novels, it is very long and has numerous side-tracks and false starts.
    • 4/5
      At the first glance this novel looks bland but the pace seems to catch up rapidly a few chapters onward. I loved the way the author fitted himself in various characters starting from the humble servant Gabriel Betteredge to the detective Sergeant Cuff and giving us different perspectives of the mystery that surrounds the moonstone. I do admit though that it is a tad bit different from the other detective novels I have read so far but it did quite make my day.
    • 4/5
      This is the perfect combination of Victorian lit combined with a good mystery. The story is based on a valuable moonstone that was part of the headpiece of a Hindu idol. A British soldier steals it from India and brings it, and its associated curse, back to England. He bequeaths it to his niece on her 18th birthday. After the elaborate birthday dinner, the jewel is stolen. There is a large and diverse cast of characters - which become a large and diverse cast of potential suspects. The book is told through journals written by different characters ranging from an old faithful servant to an evangelical spinster. The personality of the narrators added by not only putting a bit of prejudice on each witness but also created some very good humor. Very fun read!
    • 4/5
      Diamonds may be a girl's best friend, but don't ask Rachel Verinder to agree with that maxim. She only had twelve hours to bask in the glow of the rare yellow diamond that was given to her on her 18th birthday. This stolen diamond came complete with an Indian curse and three Indians in hot pursuit of it as it once again disappears and becomes the focal point of this Victorian detective novel.Collins uses multiple narratives to ascertain the events of that fateful night and the year following it. These eye-witness accounts from some colorful characters help move the story along, although having been originally written in serial form, the book tends to be wordy with many needless cliffhangers. My limits of credulity were stretched by the reenactment of the night of the crime, and I became impatient with too many sealed letters that mostly revealed "secrets" that weren't relevant to the main story. Overall, I enjoyed the characters and dry humor more than I liked the story. If you like Victorian melodrama, you will most certainly like this book.
    • 4/5
      Rachel Verinder inherits a diamond rumoured to have been looted from a Hindu temple. Three Indians try to retrieve it, but when it goes missing on the very night Rachel is given it, it is not the Indians who stole it. Sergeant Cuff is summoned to look into the mystery, but is asked to bring his investigation to an end when it becomes clear that Rachel knows exactly what has happened to the stone, but is mysteriously unwilling to explain.I read this about 30 years ago and, sadly, managed to remember the gist of what happened, thus spoiling the mystery. Written as accounts from the various eye witnesses (at the request of Franklin Blake, Rachel's cousin and the deliverer of the diamond), there are thus different narrators and different narrative styles. I felt this worked extremely well for the first half of the book: Betteredge, the old family retainer, had a distinctive voice and personality, as did Miss Clack. However, after that things blurred a bit: Franklin and Ezra Jennings were indistinguishable for me. I found the (extremely long) letter from Roseanna Spearman rather unlikely and rather too literate to have been penned by a maid and former thief. Mr Candy was a confusing character too - in person unable to maintain the thread of a conversation, but an excellent letter writer. I have no idea whether the concept on which the resolution of the mystery hangs is at all realistic, but the identity of the villain was satisfactory, as was the ultimate destiny of the Moonstone itself.
    • 5/5
      Over 100 years old and still a fantastic read!The first "detective novel" which heralded a whole new genre in fiction, long before Sherlock, Poe or even Clouseau.........Defines the term "enduring classic."
    • 5/5
      This book has lived with me since forever. No way I can be objective about it. I've been re-reading a few old books which were favourites in my late teens and it is interesting to see which come out best (or worst) in the class/gender/race teeth gnashing stakes. Wilkie Collins comes out quite well (born 1824), John Buchan not so well (b. 1875), Kipling (b. 1865) not too bad except for women! Shall try some Rider Haggard next (b. 1856).
    • 5/5
      Espionage, murder, romance and humour; this novel has them all.Considered by many to be the inaugural detective novel, Wilkie Collins' nineteenth century novel 'The Moonstone' is a classic.What's it about?A precious gem is stolen, a curse follows the thief and three Hindus sacrifice their caste to retrieve it.This brief précis gives the novel a certain exoticism, and it's true that India bookends the story, but really it's a whodunnit set in a country house. The main action focuses on a period of about a year and a half during which the sought-after diamond is stolen - again - from a Miss Rachel Verinder, mere hours after she receives it.From this point, puzzles abound. Who stole it? Why won't Miss Rachel support the police investigation? What have the three Indians who were hanging around the house got to do with the theft?Some of the answers initially seem obvious, but as the story develops there are several strange twists and turns that place the initial events in a very different light.What's it like?A little slow and repetitive in places due to the narrative structure, but there's no shortage of surprises and puzzles to keep readers intrigued, including an excellent twist half-way through.The novel is carefully constructed from "documents", most of which are eyewitness statements commissioned by one of the key characters in the tale. Just like Collins' most famous work, 'The Woman in White', the central conceit is that each section is written by a character who is limited to telling you what they did, thought, saw and suspected at the point in the story they are writing about. This necessarily creates a little repetition at times but the narrowness of each character's vision is what contributes so effectively to the suspense.Furthermore, some repetition is deliberate and quite helpful to the reader. Since the novel was originally serialised in Dickens' magazine 'All the Year Round' between January and August 1868, contemporary readers would have appreciated judiciously timed reminders of events which had happened in previous instalments. Reading this on an ereader meant I found it difficult to toggle between sections and so found the discreet recaps equally useful!So has it stood the test of time?Definitely; the aristocratic characters may have fewer real-life counterparts today, but the emotional heart of the novel rings as true as ever.To fully appreciate this, you need to enjoy reading a lot of dialogue and accept a slow pace to the development of the mystery. The formal structure Collins adopts means the novel consists mostly of dialogue as characters explain all the key incidents to each other. This does create a certain distance and reduces the dramatic impact but is essential to create the suspense: if we had (for instance) Rosanna Spearman's account of events from Rosanna Spearman's own mouth, instead of recounted second-hand and then by letter, this would be a much shorter and far less puzzling story. Besides which, much of the enjoyment is found in the characterisation and the narrative approaches.The narrators have very distinct voices and I particularly enjoyed the first two significant voices: Gabriel Betteredge and Miss Clack. Betteredge's narrative initially consists of a series of digressions followed by assurances of future progression of the mystery, but he's also sharply, wonderfully opinionated:"Rosana Spearman had been a thief, and not being of the sort that get up Companies in the City, and rob from thousands, instead of only robbing from one, the law laid hold of her"."I have myself (in spite of the bishops and the clergy) an unfeigned respect for the church""I can't affirm that he was on the watch for his brother officer's speedy appearance in the character of an ass - I can only say that I strongly suspected it.""I am (thank God) constitutionally superior to reason."If you find the above quotations from Betteredge amusing then you'll likely find this a rewarding read, and by the time Betteredge retires from his position as narrator you'll be suitably hooked by the mystery to keep reading.The next narrator, Miss Clack, is horribly evangelical with no empathy at all, but once her hypocrisy is unveiled she is equally enjoyable in her own way, and I quickly adapted to each new speaker and their quirks.Final thoughtsI enjoyed reading this and was suitably perplexed by the central mystery. I found the various twists and turns interesting, though you do have to be prepared to suspend disbelief about a few key points.
    • 5/5
      What an excellent book. It held me to the last with its different perspectives and the linking character of the inimitable Sergeant Cusk. The only thing I'm wondering is why it's taken my so many decades to come to it.
    • 3/5
      An entertaining story by one of the earliest mystery writers.
    • 4/5
      I read this before reading The Woman in White...and while the technique of using various narrators to carry the story forward is identical, both the mechanics and the characterisations generally are more deftly drawn in The Moonstone, one of many delights being the character of Sergeant Cuff.
    • 2/5
      That we're given the story by several different narrators, who—in chronological order—were involved with the whole Moonstone affair, is a very interesting device. There's a clear voice for each section, and the whole things comes around nicely in the end.Deception, family affairs, the mystery of the East. Nice little bundle here.
    • 4/5
      I could not put this down. It has informed every detective story I have seen or read since. I thought the morphine sequence was exaggerated and then a week later I saw a Masterpiece Theatre story based on another morphine induced memory retrieval.
    • 4/5
      A great absorbing book, more so for its brilliant and wry portraits than for the mystery itself. While I did not find the mystery as spine-tingling and mysterious as Woman in White, I loved this book nearly as much as that. The character studies are really well done, and at time poignant,Ezra Jennings; and often amusing, Miss Clack; and sometimes both, Gabriel Betteredge. While tackling a well crafted mystery, Collins attempts to analyze the problems of prejudice and imperialism. His treatment of those outside of the class system or on the lower ends of it is intelligent and rarely stoops to the pathos of Dickens.
    • 4/5
      After a slow start this book turned out to be really good. I love a mystery and this one had some great twists and turns and I was surprised at how it all unfolded. Very nicely written.

      I think it was a slow start just because I needed to get my mind set into the scene and time of the book. Once I was there it was wonderful!
    • 5/5
      First rate, top drawer, loved it. Great characters, both male & female. Very accessible to modern readers.
    • 2/5
      I had to abandon this at least 2/3 of the way through. I was listening to a Librivox recording and the third narrator, Christine?, killed it for me. Her English is so heavily accented to the American ear that I could hardly follow it anymore. This also occurred at a major transition point in the novel and I just couldn't get there when it slowed to a sanil's pace. Oh well.
    • 4/5
      Considered the first detective story, and a classic suspense story, Collins' The Moonstone is a cycling, twisting tale of intrigue and theft. From narrator to narrator, the parts of the world unfold until clues seem to build to one conclusion, and then another, surprising the characters along with the reader.Although it took me some time to get into the book, once I passed through the first two narrators' sections, I could hardly put the book down, and so many moments and details surprised me that it was an incredibly satisfying read, and one I'm surprised I didn't manage to read sooner. I'd absolutely recommend this to anyone who loves the classics, from Dickens on through others, and anyone who enjoys mysteries--this was a fun one.
    • 4/5
      Loved the ending. Not your classical good guys win, bad guys die, but a little bit more sophisticated. I never knew (before now) that Wilkie Collins was one of Arthur Canon Doyle's inspirations. The book is a bit slow, but that's one of the pleasures in reading victorian books - taking the time to enjoy them properly. After all, they were written at a time when they were *supposed* to be time consuming. I also didn't like the general attitude towards servants, showing them as lowly all of the time. But again, that's what you get in 19th century novels, you just have to bear with it. Other than that, I just had a wonderfull adventure :) 3.12.07
    • 4/5
      #133. [The Moonstone], [[Wilkie Collins]]The Moonstone is a name given to a large yellow diamond stolen from a religious shrine in India during a battle between the British and the Indians in 1799 by John Herncastle as witnessed by his cousin John Verinder. The diamond carried a curse which brought trouble to whom ever possessed it.In brief "The Moonstone" is a suspenseful story of the gifting of the diamond to a young lady on her 18th birthday in 1848, its disappearance the same night and the subsequent search for it until 1850. The way the mystery is told is most interesting. Eleven different characters relating their role as well as to what they could personally attest to the robbery. This provides various views on what occurred and how the actions of others were interpreted. In these narratives the reader learns of the history of the diamond and it's three Indian protectors, the gifting, the loss and the search for the diamond from a long-time servant in the country home of the wealthy family, the poor Christian spinster cousin who thrives on doing good work and spreading the faith. Two male cousins one a gambler and the other somewhat of a dilettante, both wishing to marry the same cousin. The wealthy side of the family, the family solicitor, the village doctor and his assistant, a police sargent who specializes in family thefts and roses, and a well traveled man with certainty some Indian heritage. It provides an interesting cross-section of life in Victorian England.It is one of the earliest mystery novels written, and was serialized, likely in a newspaper, when first published. For those of us use to the pace of today's mysteries we may find it a little slow in places but it did not lose my attention. Collins is to be commended for keeping all the strands of the story straight.Reviewed September 18, 2018⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
    • 3/5
      Not near as good as Woman in White - supposedly a mystery involving a gem stolen by three Indian men, the theft of which breaks apart a potential love affair.
    • 5/5
      The Moonstone is considered to be the first English detective novel. The story is told in a series of narratives by various characters. It also has some social statements on the life of servants and on the imperialism of the British nation. The Moonstone is a large flawed yellow diamond sacred to Hindus in India. It happens to cause trouble to the possessor since it was taken in the battle at Seringapatam. Rachel Verinder receives it as an inheritance on her eighteenth birthday. Three Hindu men have dedicated their lives to capturing and returning the Moonstone to India. The three Indian men show up as jugglers during the birthday celebration. that night Rachel puts the Moonstone in her cabinet and the next day it is found to be stolen. At first it is thought the Indians have taken it but soon the reader knows that someone who was in the house that night is responsible. Rachel will not cooperate with the investigation. The mystery is not solved.

      This book was very enjoyable and was a quick enjoyable read for a book of nearly 500 pages. Many people enjoy the author’s The Woman in White but I preferred this one. The mystery is interesting, the characters are well developed and I can recommend this one to just about anyone who likes a good story. I have this in dead tree, kindle and audio and read it with whispersync. The narrator did a good job of trying to create a voice for each character.
    • 2/5
      (Original Review, 1981-01-28)The instant my eyes rested on her, I was struck by the rare beauty of her form, and by the unaffected grace of her attitude. Her figure was tall, yet not too tall; comely and well-developed, yet not fat; her head set on her shoulders with an easy, pliant firmness; her waist, perfection in the eyes of a man, for it occupied its natural place, it filled out its natural circle, it was visibly and delightfully undeformed. She had not heard my entrance into the room; and I allowed myself the luxury of admiring her for a few moments, before I moved one of the chairs near me, as the least embarrassing means of attracting her attention. She turned towards me immediately. The easy elegance of every movement of her limbs and body as soon as she began to advance from the far end of the room, set me in a flutter of expectation to see her face clearly. She left the window—and I said to myself, The lady is dark. She moved forward a few steps—and I said to myself, The lady is young. She approached nearer—and I said to myself (with a sense of surprise which words fail me to express), The lady is ugly!Never was the old conventional maxim, that Nature cannot err, more flatly contradicted—never was the fair promise of a lovely figure more strangely and startlingly belied by the face and head that crowned it. The lady's complexion was almost swarthy, and the dark down on her upper lip was almost a moustache. She had a large, firm, masculine mouth and jaw; prominent, piercing, resolute brown eyes; and thick, coal-black hair, growing unusually low down on her forehead. Her expression—bright, frank, and intelligent—appeared, while she was silent, to be altogether wanting in those feminine attractions of gentleness and pliability, without which the beauty of the handsomest woman alive is beauty incomplete. To see such a face as this set on shoulders that a sculptor would have longed to model—to be charmed by the modest graces of action through which the symmetrical limbs betrayed their beauty when they moved, and then to be almost repelled by the masculine form and masculine look of the features in which the perfectly shaped figure ended—was to feel a sensation oddly akin to the helpless discomfort familiar to us all in sleep, when we recognise yet cannot reconcile the anomalies and contradictions of a dream.
    • 5/5
      I seem to be going through a phase of re-reading books, and this is certainly one of my favourites - indeed, probably my favourite "classic".First published in 1868, it is certainly notable for its innovative approach to story telling. Nowadays we are familiar with novels written from more than one character's perspective, but I imagine that such an approach was probably very daring back in the 1860s. Collins handles this device, which could so easily have backfired, with great deftness, and the reader gleans a deep insight into the various characters as the successive narratives unfold.The "Moonstone" of the title is a diamond stolen from the head of a revered statue in a Hindu temple by John Herncastle, a British Officer serving in India. Over the following years stories about the lost jewel abounded, along with a growing belief that the stone might be cursed. Having subsided into illness Herncastle bequeathed the jewel to his niece Rachel Verinder, to be given to her on her eighteenth birthday.The Moonstone is to be delivered to Rachel by her cousin Franklin Blake, formerly a great favourite of the Verinder family, who has been travelling the world for the last few years. He arranges to visit the Verinder household in Yorkshire, arriving a few days ahead of Rachel's birthday. On the day that he is expected three itinerant Indian "jugglers" turn up and perform some odd tricks in the neighbourhood, and seem to be "casing" the Verinder house. Franklin Blake arrives a little earlier and, after consulting with Betteredge (the butler and wryly sage narrator of the opening section of the story), departs to the nearby town in order to lodge the jewel in its strongroom. Before he goes he bumps in to Rosanna Spearman, one of the domestic servants in the Verinder household. We subsequently learn that she had previously been in prison after having turned to crime to escape a life of deep deprivation down in London. Mr Verinder, aware of this background but also swayed by good reports of Rosanna's reform, had employed her some months previously. In that chance encounter with Franklin Blake Rosanna immediately falls madly in love with him.The day of the birthday arrives, and various other friends and relatives attend a special dinner. Rachel, who had known nothing about the Moonstone, is delighted by her special birthday present, and cannot be dissuaded from wearing it at the dinner table. Almost inevitably, the jewel is stolen from Rachel's room that night. Rachel herself is clearly disturbed by its loss and starts to behave in an uncharacteristically aggressive and bad-tempered manner. It soon becomes evident that she is particularly angry towards Franklin Blake.The local Superintendent of police is called in but achieves little. Meanwhile, Franklin Blake has communicated by telegraph with his father, an MP in London, who commissions the lugubrious Sergeant Cuff to travel up to take over the investigation. Cuff is generally credited as the first great detective in English literature and he certainly comes across as an awesome character. Like so many of his modern day successors, he has his oddities and his querulous side. In Cuff's case it is gardening, and particularly the rearing of roses, that dominates his thoughts away from his job.Cuff becomes convinced that Rachel Verinder herself is involved in the loss of the diamond, and speculates that she might somehow have incurred extensive debts, and then recruited Rosanna to help conceal the diamond and then smuggle it out of the house and down to London where it could be pawned or otherwise converted into much needed cash.Various other misadventures befall the characters, and one year on the mystery has not yet been resolved. It is at this point that, in what was to became a tradition in whodunnit stories, the scene is recreated, and a startling yet also convincing denouement is achieved.Collins was a close friend of Charles Dickens, and they collaborated on various publications. In The Moonstone, however, Collins displayed a fluidity and clarity of prose that Dickens never achieves. His satirical touch is light but more telling because of that. Nearly one hundred and fifty years on this novel remains fresh, accessible and immensely enjoyable.
    • 3/5
      The Moonstone is credited with being one of (if not the) first detective mystery novels, and I wanted to read it because another book I plan to read references it.

      I liked it. It is the proverbial English country house mystery. Nice little dead ends, twists and fun stuff. Unlikely (and likely) suspects, a little of the paranormal-ish... I think it was the first to really feature a twist at the end, but nowadays we're so used to twists, it wasn't one to me (seriously, it was easy to figure out, but fun).

      The story is a little long. It takes place through several narrators, from the house-manager to the aristocratic guest, the lady's religious niece, the opium addicted doctor, and the retired, rose-growing detective.

      There is not a lot of overlap in the narratives, and the narratives follow the story chronologically, making them a wee bit less tedious than if we had to read about the same event from 5 viewpoints. There's a lot of thought, introspection, distractions, and human frailties in the narratives that make them interesting.

      I also think it has held up well over time. Not bad. I'd recommend it to anyone that likes to read these kinds of novels or even watch these kinds of movies/shows.
    • 5/5
      God, I love Wilkie Collins. As with Woman in White, there is mystery, complicated and well-developed characters, and strong female characters. It is obvious from his writing that Collins thought much differently than his counterparts about the abilities of women. In many ways this work could be compared to Woman in White, which is one of my favorite books of all time. The tempo and narration of Moonstone is just about perfect. I definitely recommend this for anyone who likes mysteries or novels of this time period.