The Moonstone (Wordsworth Classics)

by David Blair (Introduction), David Blair (Introduction), Dr Keith Carabine (Series Editor), Wilkie Collins (Author)

• Used

  Paperback
  1992

  $4.11

  Introduction and Notes by David Blair, Rutherford College, University of Kent. The Moonstone, a priceless Indian diamond which had been brought to England as spoils of war, is given to Rachel Verrinder on her eighteenth birthday. That very night, the stone is stolen. Suspicion then falls on a hunchbacked housemaid, on Rachel's cousin Franklin Blake, on a troupe of mysterious Indian jugglers, and on Rachel herself. The phlegmatic Sergeant Cuff is called in, and with the help of Betteredge, the Robinson Crusoe-reading loquacious steward, the mystery of the missing stone is ingeniously solved.

• Used

  Paperback
  1991

  $3.19

  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.

• New

  Paperback
  1999

  $22.49

  Intrigue, investigations, thievery, drugs and murder all make an appearance in Collins's classic who-done-it, The Moonstone . Published in serial form in 1868, it was inspired in part by a spectacular murder case widely reported in the early 1860s. Collins's story revolves around a diamond stolen from a Hindu holy place. On her eighteenth birthday, Rachel Verinder receives the diamond, but by the following morning the stone has been stolen again. As the story unravels through multiple eyewitness accounts, the elderly Sergeant Cuff--with a face sharp as a hatchet --looks for the culprit. One of Collins's best-loved novels, with an exciting plot moved along by deftly-drawn characters and elegant pacing, The Moonstone was also turned into a play by Collins; the play appears as an appendix to this edition.