Historical fiction book · Curated
The Moonstone
Wilkie Collins · historical fiction
A yellow diamond looted from a temple at Seringapatam is given to Rachel Verinder on her eighteenth birthday in 1848 Yorkshire, and vanishes from her sitting room that night, with no one in the house above suspicion. Wilkie Collins’s 1868 novel is Victorian mystery historical fiction of Sergeant Cuff’s investigation, an opium-blurred memory, and the guardians who want the Moonstone returned to its shrine.
Why read it: A perennial title-search detective novel—the Collins title readers look up by name (T. S. Eliot called it the first and best of modern English detective novels), and a country-house counterpart to The Woman in White already on the shelf (not a sequel).
About this historical novel
The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins is historical fiction set around 1848 in the Victorian / Gilded Age period with key settings including Yorkshire, London, England, Seringapatam. A yellow diamond looted from a temple at Seringapatam is given to Rachel Verinder on her eighteenth birthday in 1848 Yorkshire, and vanishes from her sitting room that night, with no one in the house above suspicion. Wilkie Collins’s 1868 novel is Victorian mystery historical fiction of Sergeant Cuff’s investigation, an opium-blurred memory, and the guardians who want the Moonstone returned to its shrine.
On HisFic we tag it under 3. Historical mystery & crime and 1. Literary historical fiction so you can pair it with similar story types. Recurring themes include theft, the diamond, memory, empire, and suspicion. A perennial title-search detective novel—the Collins title readers look up by name (T. S. Eliot called it the first and best of modern English detective novels), and a country-house counterpart to The Woman in White already on the shelf (not a sequel).
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Plot summary
A yellow diamond looted from a temple at Seringapatam is given to Rachel Verinder on her eighteenth birthday in 1848 Yorkshire, and vanishes from her sitting room that night, with no one in the house above suspicion. Wilkie Collins’s 1868 novel is Victorian mystery historical fiction of Sergeant Cuff’s investigation, an opium-blurred memory, and the guardians who want the Moonstone returned to its shrine. A perennial title-search detective novel—the Collins title readers look up by name (T. S. Eliot called it the first and best of modern English detective novels), and a country-house counterpart to The Woman in White already on the shelf (not a sequel).
Subgenres
Eras
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- Alias Grace · Margaret Atwood
A doctor probes the mind of Grace Marks, convicted in a notorious Canadian murder case.
- Fingersmith · Sarah Waters
In 1862 London, pickpocket Sue Trinder is planted as a maid in a lonely Thames-side mansion to help a gentleman swindle an heiress—then the con turns inside out. Sarah Waters’s Booker-shortlisted Victorian novel is literary historical fiction of thieves, asylums, and desire, with crime-plot machinery that still startles.
- The Woman in White · Wilkie Collins
On a moonlit London road, drawing-master Walter Hartright meets a woman dressed all in white—then, engaged at Limmeridge, he is pulled into the plot that binds Laura Fairlie to Sir Percival Glyde and the charming, dangerous Count Fosco. Wilkie Collins’s sensation novel is Victorian historical mystery of swapped identities, a private asylum, and the question of who the woman in white really is.
- Possession · A. S. Byatt
In the London Library, researcher Roland Michell finds unsigned drafts of a letter from the Victorian poet Randolph Henry Ash, traces them to the poet Christabel LaMotte, and with Maud Bailey follows a correspondence from their secret affair that the academy has never seen. A. S. Byatt’s 1990 novel is Victorian time-slip historical fiction of that affair’s 1859 crisis, and of the late-1980s academics who cross London, Yorkshire, and Brittany to possess the proof.
- The Essex Serpent · Sarah Perry
In 1893, newly widowed Cora Seaborne leaves London for the Essex marshes, where rumor of a winged serpent collides with a country vicar, a dying wife, and the new sciences of fossils and medicine. Sarah Perry’s novel is Victorian historical fiction of faith, desire, and a coastal town arguing with the modern world.
- The Luminaries · Eleanor Catton
In 1866, Walter Moody lands in Hokitika on New Zealand’s West Coast goldfields and walks into a secret meeting of twelve men: a magnate has vanished, a fortune has turned up in a dead drunkard’s cabin, and a prostitute has tried to take her own life. Eleanor Catton’s Booker-winning novel is Victorian historical mystery—gold, astrology, and a frontier town whose fates are mapped to the night sky.
Regions & places
Britain & Ireland · Asia
Yorkshire · London · England · Seringapatam · India
Themes
- theft
- the diamond
- memory
- empire
- suspicion
Tags
classic · mystery