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Rating: 
Summary: Go ahead and yawn, you won't miss anything.
Review: I understood that The Moonstone is a classic so I decided to read this to be culturally literate. Well the story line may be interesting but the writing is atrocious. It is curricular, bloated, and seemingly pointless. The characters just keep rattling. A lot of writers fill in the story with descriptions of time and place to give an atmosphere to the story. This writer (Wilkie Collins) just fills it with unrelated trivia. Every once in a while I would go back a few pages to see what I must have missed. When I read again there was nothing there to miss. Ether Wilkie is extremely monotonous or other writing from this period is and I am just now lucky enough to find out. I talked to others about this and they said; "Now you know why Sherlock Holmes is so popular"
Rating: 
Summary: Diffrent
Review: MoonStone absolutley has you on edge. It's unlike most books, instead of having a slow begining where they introduce all the cahracters, it goes straight to the plot. It's a tornado of emotion, but one that's easy to follow. The book enables you to feel the danger of death (over a misfit yellow diamond) around every corner. The plot never dies, it's impossible to put the book down once you start. It easily wins over your mind. You'll probably end up reading the same page twice just to get that complete feeling. It takes you back to the times of Victorian Ladies and Gentlemens. The book takes you away from your current life, and lets you enter into a totally new one. 5 stars easily earned
Rating:
Summary: Diffrent
Review: MoonStone absolutley has you on edge. It's unlike most books, instead of having a slow begining where they introduce all the cahracters, it goes straight to the plot. It's a tornado of emotion, but one that's easy to follow. The book enables you to feel the danger of death (over a misfit yellow diamond) around every corner. The plot never dies, it's impossible to put the book down once you start. It easily wins over your mind. You'll probably end up reading the same page twice just to get that complete feeling. It takes you back to the times of Victorian Ladies and Gentlemens. The book takes you away from your current life, and lets you enter into a totally new one. 5 stars easily earned
Rating: 
Summary: the magnum opus of suspense and intrigue
Review: T.S. Eliot was not exaggerating when he dubbed Collins' masterpiece "the first, the longest, and the best of modern English detective novels". The Moonstone, first published in 1868, is the magnum opus of suspense and intrigue that will surely please the avid mystery and/or classics buff. The adventure begins when the priceless yellow diamond from India, known as the 'Moonstone', is brought to English as spoils of war and is bestowed upon the spirited Rachel Verrinder on her 18th birthday. Chaos soon commences. The valuable jewel is stolen that very night and the entire household falls under suspicion - including a hunchbacked maid, an assemblage of enigmatic Indian jugglers, and Miss Verrinder's cousin Mr. Franklin Blake. Suspicion of thievery does not even escape Miss Verrinder herself. The famed Sergeant Cuff is summoned to the house to try and make sense of the baffling mystery of the diamond's disappearance and the strange events that ensue. The Moonstone is comprised of three novelettes and a handful of sub-sections, each narrated by three individuals (and a handful of other characters writing shorter supporting memoirs), with their own whimsical writing styles and detailed anecdotes about their adventures surrounding the jewel's disappearance and the aftermath. Their varying perspectives on incidents throw interesting light on the events unraveling around the reader. Introducing the novel is the household's elderly and garrulous manservant, Mr. Gabriel Betteredge, with his witty maxims and proverbial quotes from his personal bible, "Robinson Crusoe". The pious and almost-fanatical Miss Clack's cold recital of events, is followed soon after by Mr. Franklin Blake's narrative of events, and the mystery's final and most ingenious outcome. It will not disappoint. I leave you with a bit of insight bestowed upon us by the lovable and amusing Mr. Betteredge: "When my spirits are bad -- Robinson Crusoe. When I want advice -- Robinson Crusoe. In past times when my wife plagued me; in present times when I have had a drop too much -- Robinson Crusoe. I have worn out six stout Robinson Crusoes with hard work in my service. On my lady's last birthday she gave me a seventh. I took a drop too much on the strength of it; and Robinson Crusoe put me right again. Price four shillings and sixpence, bound in blue, with a picture into the bargain. Still, this don't look much like starting the story of the Diamond -- does it? I seem to be wandering off in search of Lord knows what, Lord knows where. We will take a new sheet of paper, if you please, and begin over again, with my best respects to you."
Rating:
Summary: the magnum opus of suspense and intrigue
Review: T.S. Eliot was not exaggerating when he dubbed Collins' masterpiece "the first, the longest, and the best of modern English detective novels". The Moonstone, first published in 1868, is the magnum opus of suspense and intrigue that will surely please the avid mystery and/or classics buff. The adventure begins when the priceless yellow diamond from India, known as the 'Moonstone', is brought to English as spoils of war and is bestowed upon the spirited Rachel Verrinder on her 18th birthday. Chaos soon commences. The valuable jewel is stolen that very night and the entire household falls under suspicion - including a hunchbacked maid, an assemblage of enigmatic Indian jugglers, and Miss Verrinder's cousin Mr. Franklin Blake. Suspicion of thievery does not even escape Miss Verrinder herself. The famed Sergeant Cuff is summoned to the house to try and make sense of the baffling mystery of the diamond's disappearance and the strange events that ensue. The Moonstone is comprised of three novelettes and a handful of sub-sections, each narrated by three individuals (and a handful of other characters writing shorter supporting memoirs), with their own whimsical writing styles and detailed anecdotes about their adventures surrounding the jewel's disappearance and the aftermath. Their varying perspectives on incidents throw interesting light on the events unraveling around the reader. Introducing the novel is the household's elderly and garrulous manservant, Mr. Gabriel Betteredge, with his witty maxims and proverbial quotes from his personal bible, "Robinson Crusoe". The pious and almost-fanatical Miss Clack's cold recital of events, is followed soon after by Mr. Franklin Blake's narrative of events, and the mystery's final and most ingenious outcome. It will not disappoint. I leave you with a bit of insight bestowed upon us by the lovable and amusing Mr. Betteredge: "When my spirits are bad -- Robinson Crusoe. When I want advice -- Robinson Crusoe. In past times when my wife plagued me; in present times when I have had a drop too much -- Robinson Crusoe. I have worn out six stout Robinson Crusoes with hard work in my service. On my lady's last birthday she gave me a seventh. I took a drop too much on the strength of it; and Robinson Crusoe put me right again. Price four shillings and sixpence, bound in blue, with a picture into the bargain. Still, this don't look much like starting the story of the Diamond -- does it? I seem to be wandering off in search of Lord knows what, Lord knows where. We will take a new sheet of paper, if you please, and begin over again, with my best respects to you."
Rating:
Summary: A Favorite Many Times Over
Review: This is a book worth reading many times. I pick it up every couple of years and enjoy it more and more every time. Collins mocks and sympathizes with his characters at the same time. The mystery is fun. The plot is a bit slow. The characters make the book well worth the time. They are like old friends with all of the forgivable faults and quirks that mark the best of friends.
Rating:
Summary: LOVE THAT WILKIE!
Review: Wilkie Collins is a master storyteller, but like his other masterpiece, THE WOMAN IN WHITE, THE MOONSTONE would have been improved with a bit of editing. The Moonstone is riveting and wonderful, as the butler, Gabriel Betteridge,unfolds his version of the yellow diamond's disappearance.For the reader, the story bogs down as Miss Clack picks up the tale with her tiresome religious view of life. Action all but stands still, as there is not much in Miss Clack's lengthy prose to move the story forward to its conclusion. The reader is left yearning for more of the plot to be revealed, more details to cling to until the tale's final revealation.I felt more than a bit let down at Collins' ending to an otherwise fabulous story. Alas,the culprit was our hero, who had not purloined the stone, but had taken it with pure intent to save it, while under the stuporous influence of an opiate.Luckily, they all lived happily ever after--the stone went back to India and Frank and Julia tied the knot, and the secretly evil bad guy died.Happy ending!
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