Wilkie Collins, The Moonstone

Bianca Tredennick (SUNY, Oneonta)

The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 1.2.1.07: English Writing and Culture of the Victorian Period, 1837-1901.
Vol. editors: Gillian Fenwick (University of Toronto), Grace Moore (University of Otago)

Dates

First circulation or publication 1868

Places

England (Country of Origin)

Genres and Modes

Crime and Detective
Novel

Resources

Wilkie Collins’s 1868 novel, The Moonstone, is notable for being one of the first detective novels. As such, it begins certain trends that have now become synonymous with the genre, including the savvy policeman, the redundancy of suspects, the string of “red herrings”, the twists and turns, and the dramatic revelation of the truth. It was a popular, if not an entire critical success in its time, introducing its readers to this new kind of fiction in the same way Collins’s earlier novel, The Woman in White, had ushered in the brief era of the sensation novel. In our time, it is on the basis of these two novels that Collins’s reputation with critics and popularity with readers lies.

During the period …

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2625 words

Citation: Tredennick, Bianca. "The Moonstone". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 11 April 2006 [https://staging.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=128, accessed 26 November 2024.]

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