The Moonstone (Penguin Readers Simplified Text)

by WilkieCollins (Author)

• Used

  Paperback
  1999

  $4.67

  The Moonstone is an ancient Indian diamond which brings disaster and tragedy to everyone who owns it. Rachel Verinder's uncle gives the diamond to her as a birthday present, but the same night, it is stolen. Penguin Readers is a series of simplified novels, film novelizations and original titles that introduce students at all levels to the pleasures of reading in English. Originally designed for teaching English as a foreign language, the series' combination of high interest level and low reading age makes it suitable for both English-speaking teenagers with limited reading skills and students of English as a second language. Many titles in the series also provide access to the pre-20th century literature strands of the National Curriculum English Orders. Penguin Readers are graded at seven levels of difficulty, from Easystarts with a 200-word vocabulary, to Level 6 (Advanced) with a 3000-word vocabulary. In addition, titles fall into one of three sub-categories: Contemporary , Classics or Originals . At the end of each book there is a section of enjoyable exercises focusing on vocabulary building, comprehension, discussion and writing. Some titles in the series are available with an accompanying audio cassette, or in a book and cassette pack. Additionally, selected titles have free accompanying Penguin Readers Factsheets which provide stimulating exercise material for students, as well as suggestions for teachers on how to exploit the Readers in class.

• Used

  Paperback
  1991

  $3.35

  The moonstone is a yellow diamond of unearthly beauty brought from India and given to Rachel Verrinder as an eighteenth birthday present, but the fabled diamond carries with it a terrible curse.

• Used

  Hardcover
  1944

  $3.35

• New

  Paperback
  1998

  $11.39

  The Moonstone is one of the first true works of detective fiction, in which Wilkie Collins established the groundwork for the genre itself. This Penguin Classics edition is edited with an introduction by Sandra Kemp. The Moonstone , a priceless yellow diamond, is looted from an Indian temple and maliciously bequeathed to Rachel Verinder. On her eighteenth birthday, her friend and suitor Franklin Blake brings the gift to her. That very night, it is stolen again. 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. The intricate plot and modern technique of multiple narrators made Wilkie Collins' 1868 work a huge success in the Victorian sensation genre. 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. In her introduction Sandra Kemp explores The Moonstone's the detective elements of Collins' writing, and reveals how Collins' sensibilities were untypical of his era. Wilkie Collins (1824-1889) was born in London in 1824, the eldest son of the landscape painter William Collins. In 1846 he was entered to read for the bar at Lincoln's Inn, where he gained the knowledge that was to give him much of the material for his writing. From the early 1850s he was a friend of Charles Dickens, who produced and acted in two melodramas written by Collins, The Lighthouse and The Frozen Deep . Of his novels, Collins is best remembered for The Woman in White (1859), No Name (1862), Armadale (1866) and The Moonstone (1868). If you enjoyed The Moonstone you might like Collins' The Woman in White , also available in Penguin Classics . Probably the very finest detective story ever written. (Dorothy L. Sayers). The first, the longest and the best of modern modern English detective novels. (T.S. Eliot).