The Moonstone

The Moonstone, a priceless yellow diamond looted from an Indian temple, is bequeathed to Rachel Verinder on her eighteenth birthday, but it is stolen again that very night. No one is above suspicion as the indefatigable Sergeant Cuff pieces together a series of events as mystifying as an opium dream and as deceptive as the nearby Shivering Sand.

T. S. Eliot praised The Moonstone as “the first…and the best of modern English detective novels.” To this day, it draws the reader into its world of danger, suspense, and societal anxiety. Collins unmasks a restrictive society marked by sexual and imperial domination, as well as the often-ignored underside of Victorian life. In his hands, facts, identities, and memory are only transient. This spellbinding mystery, narrated in turn by characters highborn and lowborn, is a fascinating excursion into the shadows that lie just beyond the ordered landscape of English society.

With an Introduction by Alev Lytle Croutier and an Afterword by Lillian Nayder