The Moonstone (Unabridged)

The Moonstone (Unabridged)

Title: The Moonstone (Unabridged)
Author: Wilkie Collins
Release: 2025-03-27
Kind: audiobook
Genre: Classics
Preview Intro
1
The Moonstone (Unabridged) Wilkie Collins
Exclusively from Audible

Considered the first full-length detective story in the English language, T.S. Eliot described The Moonstone as 'the first and greatest English detective novel'.

The stone of the title is an enormous yellow diamond plundered from an Indian shrine after the Siege of Seringapatam. Given to Miss Verinder on her 18th birthday, it mysteriously disappears that very night. Suspicion falls on three Indian jugglers who have been seen in the neighbourhood. Sergeant Cuff is assigned to the case and though it looks simple nothing can be taken for granted.

The story is recounted by several narrators including the bemused butler, the love-sick housemaid, the enigmatic detective Sergeant Cuff and the drug-addicted scientist, who in turn, speculate on the mystery.

This enthralling tale of romance, theft, and murder inspired the detective genre. In a sense, Collins wrote the rulebook on detective stories as many features of The Moonstone have become conventions in the literature of others.

Charles Dickens was a close friend and mentor of Collins, and the two collaborated together on drama and fiction. The Moonstone, as well as some of his other work, was first published in Dickens' journals.

Narrator Biography

Beginning his career on stage, Peter Jeffrey became a recognisable face on British television while enjoying thirty years with the Royal Shakespeare Company as well as working with all the other great British theatre companies. He was soon in demand for television character parts, playing roles in shows such as The Saint (1964-1965), The Avengers (1966-1968) and Doctor Who (1967 and 1978) as well as being involved in many BBC Radio 4 audio dramas such as The Pickwick Papers. Though a versatile actor, he was often cast in roles of authority such as Inspector Carter in Dixon of Dock Green (1966) but occasionally guest starred in comedy roles such as "Napper" Wainwright in Porridge (1975). He continued to act during his final years, with roles in the BBC adaptation of The Prince and the Pauper (1996), The Scarlet Pimpernel (1999) and Where the Heart Is (1999).

More from Wilkie Collins

Wilkie Collins, Edgar Wallace, Charles Dickens, John Buchan, Mark Twain, Jerome K. Jerome & F. Scott Fitzgerald
Edgar Allan Poe, Bram Stoker, Wilkie Collins, E. T. A. Hoffmann, Saki, Edgar Wallace, E. F. Benson & Frederick Marryat
Wilkie Collins, H. P. Lovecraft, Edgar Allan Poe & Arthur Conan Doyle
Wilkie Collins
Wilkie Collins
Wilkie Collins, Arthur Conan Doyle, Guy de Maupassant, Elizabeth Gaskell, G. K. Chesterton & H. P. Lovecraft
Wilkie Collins
Wilkie Collins, Daniel Defoe, Ambrose Bierce, Clara Riddell, Sheridan LeFanu, Charles Dickens, Amelia Edwards, Rudyard Kipling & H.G. Wells
Catherine Louisa Perkis, L Meade, Anna Greene & Wilkie Collins
Wilkie Collins & Robert Barr
Wilkie Collins
Wilkie Collins, O. Henry, Guy de Maupassant, Sarah Orne Jewett, Anthony Trollope, Mark Twain & F. Scott Fitzgerald
John Polidori, Arthur Conan Doyle, Ambrose Bierce, Barry Pain, Bram Stoker, M.R. James, Richard Middleton, Rudyard Kipling, Saki, W.F. Harvey & Wilkie Collins
Charles Dickens, Wilkie Collins, A. M. Burrage, Guy de Maupassant & W. L. George
Wilkie Collins
Arthur Conan Doyle, H.P. Lovecraft, Edgar Allan Poe & Wilkie Collins
Robert Louis Stevenson, Charles Dickens, Arthur Conan Doyle, J. M. Barrie, Joseph Conrad, M. R. James, Oscar Wilde, Rudyard Kipling, Thomas Hardy & Wilkie Collins
George Eliot, John Willaim Polidori, Bram Stoker, M. R. James, Robert Louis Stevenson, Thomas Hardy, Violet Hunt, W. F. Harvey, W. W. Jacobs & Wilkie Collins
Wilkie Collins
Wilkie Collins
Stacy Aumonier, D. H. Lawrence, Katherine Mansfield, W. W. Jacobs, Oscar Wilde, Wilkie Collins & Guy de Maupassant
Charles Dickens, Arthur Conan Doyle, Elizabeth Gaskell, J. M. Barrie, Joseph Conrad, Rudyard Kipling, Thomas Hardy & Wilkie Collins
Wilkie Collins
Wilkie Collins
Wilkie Collins
Wilkie Collins
Sheridan Le Fanu, Amelia Edwards, Charles Dickens, Elizabeth Gaskell, M. R. James, Oscar Wilde, Perceval Landon, Robert Louis Stevenson, Rudyard Kipling & Wilkie Collins
Morgan Robertson, Wilkie Collins & Hugh Walpole
Nathaniel Hawthorne, Elizabeth Gaskell, Edgar Allan Poe, Edith Nesbit & Wilkie Collins