The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins

The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins

The Moonstone is a magnificent yellow diamond, 'large as a plover's egg', with a bloody history, which has been stolen from the home of Lady Verinder. An innocent man is accused of the crime. From this simple beginning Wilkie Collins creates a stunning, complex narrative of dark mystery, suspense and atmosphere. It is one of the cornerstones in the development of crime fiction. The poet and critic T. S. Eliot declared that it was 'the first, the longest and the best of modern English detective novels'. But The Moonstone, which has fascinated readers since its first publication in 1868, is more than a 'whodunnit'; like all Collins' works, it explores, dissects and exposes the society in which he lived. The richness of character and incident are engrossing, entertaining and enlightening. The Moonstone is one of the great Victorian novels. With an Afterword by David Stuart Davies.

William Wilkie Collins was born in London in 1824, the son of a successful and popular painter. Collins himself demonstrated some artistic talent and had a painting hung in the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition in 1849, but his real passion was for writing. On leaving school, he worked in the office of a tea merchant in the Strand but hated it. He left and read law as a student at Lincoln's Inn but already his writing career was flowering. His first novel, Antonina, was published in 1850. In 1851, the same year that he was called to the bar, he met and established a lifelong friendship with Charles Dickens. While Collins' fame rests on his best known works, The Woman in White and The Moonstone, he wrote over thirty books, as well as numerous short stories, articles and plays. He was a hugely popular writer in his lifetime. Collins was an unconventional individual: he never married but established long term liaisons with two separate households. He died in 1889.

SKU	Unavailable
ISBN 13	9781905716050
ISBN 10	1905716052
Title	The Moonstone
Author	Wilkie Collins
Condition	Unavailable
Binding Type	Hardback
Publisher	Pan Macmillan
Year published	2007-09-01
Number of pages	688
Cover note	Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.