The Moonstone

The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins is a delightful Victorian novel, one of the first mystery novels ever written, involving the theft of an enormous yellow diamond. All signs point to the diamond's owner, eighteen-year-old Rachel Verinder, who seems to have then stolen it from herself and framed a servant girl, perhaps to pay off some shameful debt. Those who know Rachel insist that she could not possibly do anything so base, but even they can't deny that Rachel's behavior is suspicious.

Each of the book's sections has a different narrator: the trustworthy old servant, the poor cousin, the family lawyer, and so on. Each one brings his own point of view to the story. They are truthful, but biased; they contradict one another and disagree over the significance of the details - and like many Victorian novels, The Moonstone has a lot of details.

My favorite of The Moonstone's narrators is Miss Drusilla Clack. She is a deeply religious woman, devoted to good Christian works. She is also an insufferable, smug, meddling snoop. Her self-righteousness grates on everyone around her, and her narration is full of little tidbits like this:

"The true Christian never yields ... Glorious, glorious privilege! And how is it earned? Ah, my friends, you may spare yourselves useless inquiry! We are the only people who can earn it - for we are the only people who are always right."

Isn't that fabulous? If Miss Clack was a real person I would loathe her, but as a narrator I think she's divine.

This novel isn't perfect. From the modern perspective, it is certainly a little slow. Depictions of foreigners and moneylenders are not exactly brimming with cultural sensitivity. Nevertheless, I enjoyed this book thoroughly. It's especially interesting after reading about the Road Hill case, as described in The Suspicions of Mr. Whicher by Kate Summerscale, a true crime that was in all the papers, and that influenced Collins as he wrote The Moonstone.

Check out the book, or try this excellent audio version of the novel, read by the extremely talented James Langton.