Wilkie Collins (1824-1889) was born in London in 1824, the eldest son of the landscape painter William Collins. In her introduction Sandra Kemp explores The Moonstone's the detective elements of Collins's writing, and reveals how Collins's sensibilities were untypical of his era. With a reconstruction of the crime, red herrings and a 'locked-room' puzzle, The Moonstone was also a major precursor of the modern mystery novel. The intricate plot and modern technique of multiple narrators made Wilkie Collins's 1868 work a huge success in the Victorian sensation genre. No one is above suspicion, as the idiosyncratic Sergeant Cuff and the Franklin piece together a puzzling series of events as mystifying as an opium dream and as deceptive as the nearby Shivering Sand. On her eighteenth birthday, her friend and suitor Franklin Blake brings the gift to her. The Moonstone, a priceless yellow diamond, is looted from an Indian temple and maliciously bequeathed to Rachel Verinder. This Penguin Classics edition is edited with an introduction by Sandra Kemp. The Moonstone is one of the first true works of detective fiction, in which Wilkie Collins established the groundwork for the genre itself.
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