When Rachel Verrinder inherits the Moonstone -- a huge and accursed yellow diamond, a diamond stolen generations ago from an Indian shrine -- from John Herncastle she has no idea what evil waits for her. Herncastle -- a distant relation, and one spitefully alienated from her immediate family -- intended the bequest as a sinister form of revenge. Revenge indeed: Herncastle, we learn, acquired the Moonstone by means of murder and theft, and knew full well that the jewel would bring dreadful luck upon her.
Author Biography
William Wilkie Collins (1824 - 1889) was an English novelist, playwright and short story writer. His best-known works are The Woman in White (1859), No Name (1862), Armadale (1866) and The Moonstone (1868). The last is considered the first modern English detective novel. Born into the family of painter William Collins in London, he lived with his family in Italy and France as a child and learned French and Italian. After his first novel, Antonina, was published in 1850, he met Charles Dickens, who became a close friend, mentor and collaborator. Some of Collins's works were first published in Dickens' journals All the Year Round and Household Words and the two collaborated on drama and fiction. Collins was critical of the institution of marriage and never married; he split his time between Caroline Graves, except for a two-year separation, and his common-law wife Martha Rudd, with whom he had three children.
