The Moonstone

Name: The Moonstone
Author: Wilkie Collins

Wilkie Collins

— 1868 —

“

Whatever else you read on its subject is a footnote to this.

The record

Time
An eveningA season
448 pages, about 9 hours: the length of 1.4 typical books on the shelf.
Getting in
Walk right inSteep climb
Two readers report needing extra effort before the diamond disappears; one counts ninety pages to that point.
What it gives
Plot and actionIdeas to live by
In 11 reviews from critics and book blogs, 8 credit the plot and 7 credit the ideas or a change in how they live.
One of a kind
Others do thisNothing else does
Two book blogs and Five Books weigh it against Collins’s own The Woman in White, on the shelf at 544 pages.

on the genre
“The Moonstone is the first and greatest of English detective novels. We say English detective novels, because there is also the work of Poe, which has a pure detective interest.”
T. S. Eliot · “Wilkie Collins and Dickens,” 1927
on Miss Clack
“who believes herself to be quite pious but just can’t refrain from catty comments”
a book blog
on Sergeant Cuff
“it introduces Sergeant Cuff, a memorable literary detective”
Jason Hall · Five Books, 2016
on Gabriel Betteredge
“He is both an astute and often hilarious narrator.”
a book blog

on the length
“482 pages of dense type, with footnotes”
a book blog
on Miss Clack’s prose
“Miss Clack’s prose is rather turgid and overly formal”
a book blog
on the diamond
“I was disappointed the eponymous moonstone didn’t have more to do with the plot”
three stars · a Substack review
on the pacing
“plot lines are tidied up too hastily”
a book blog