![]() “I address these lines-written in India-to my relatives in England,” goes its opening sentence, written by a cousin who accuses Colonel John Herncastle of stealing a precious diamond during the 1799 “storming of Seringapatam.” Though it doesn’t stay private for long, this document, “extracted from a family paper,” is meant “for the information of the family only.” Herncastle leaves the incriminating stolen diamond to family as well: specifically his niece, Rachel Verinder, from whom it is again stolen on the night of her eighteenth-birthday party. Eliot agreed.Īs with so many good mysteries, The Moonstone involves a family secret, which is passed down in the form of a letter. ![]() ![]() ![]() Sayers called it “probably the finest detective story ever written.” T. The stuff of domestic trifles is blown up and meticulously inspected-often literally under the lens of a magnifying glass. Suspicious details and red herrings abound. Women have fainting fits as the virtues of opium are lauded. Initially serialized in Charles Dickens’s magazine All the Year Round and released to enormous success, The Moonstone has it all: stolen jewelry, purloined letters, dirty linen, death by quicksand. ![]() With The Moonstone (1868), Wilkie Collins is credited with writing the first detective novel-a genre that runs on secrets and the uncovering of them. ![]()
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