The Moonstone: Introduction by Catherine Peters (Everyman's Library Classics Series) - Hardcover

Collins, Wilkie

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0679417222 ISBN 13: 9780679417224

Publisher: Everyman's Library USA, 1992

Synopsis

The Moonstone is a stunning yellow diamond the size of a bird's egg that glows like the harvest moon and harbors a flaw in its brilliant depths. Inherited by the beautiful young Englishwoman Rachel Verinder, it is also a sacred talisman to the Hindu priests who hope to bring it back to their holy city in India, from which it was looted long ago. The diamond's disappearance sets in motion an intricately plotted mystery. Wilkie Collins gives the reader all the necessary pieces to the puzzle, but they are so cleverly disguised that his surprise ending takes the breath away.

The elements that make up The Moonstone--a purloined jewel that carries a mysterious curse, an indefatigable British police sergeant, a drama of theft and murder in a spacious country house--have been repeated, in varying guises, throughout much of the avalanche of detective fiction that followed Collins's immensely popular 1868 novel. But none of those books has surpassed the richness and suspense of the storytelling of The Moonstone, the first detective novel and the continuing standard of its genre.

Introduction by Catherine Peters

(Book Jacket Status: Jacketed)

About this title

Review:

"The first and greatest of English detective novels."
--T. S. Eliot

From the Publisher:

Contains an 8-page plate section with long-unavailable pictures and drawings relating to Wilkie Collins and The Moonstone. Thoroughly edited and extensively annotated. Includes a 10,000-word section on Wilkie Collins's life and works, with a longer chapter on The Moonstone, anecdotes, critical perspectives, adaptations and spin-offs. Lavishly produced on natural, high-quality paper, and affordably priced.

About this edition

• Publisher: Everyman's Library USA
• Publication date: 1992
• ISBN 10: 0679417222
• ISBN 13: 9780679417224
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 528