The Moonstone

Rare edition with unique illustrations and elegant classic cream paper. The Moonstone is a page-turner it catches one up and unfolds its amazing story through the recountings of its several narrators all of them enticing and singular. Wilkie Collinss spellbinding tale of romance theft and murder inspired a hugely popular genre-the detective mystery. Hinging on the theft of an enormous diamond originally stolen from an Indian shrine this riveting novel features the innovative Sergeant Cuff the hilarious house steward Gabriel Betteridge a lovesick housemaid and a mysterious band of Indian jugglers. 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 Rachels 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. Includes vintage illustration!