Published in 1868, The Moonstone is Wilkie Collins’s most celebrated novel and is widely considered the first full-length detective novel in English. When a magnificent Indian diamond — the Moonstone — disappears from a young woman’s bedroom on her birthday, the investigation that follows is told through the accounts of multiple narrators, each contributing a piece of the puzzle. T. S. Eliot called it “the first and greatest of English detective novels.”
Collins’s innovative structure, his colourful characters, and his utterly fair-play plotting still make it a thrilling read. Download this free EPUB from Better Gutenberg for the complete, unabridged text.