The Moonstone
by
Wilkie Collins
 |
| http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/moonstone-wilkie-collins/1100318500 |
If you've ever had trouble accessing Wilkie Collin's famous book The Moonstone, consider the Barnes & Noble 2009 edition.
The Moonstone's prologue -- that business about the loony relative who stole the rock -- ended my effort for years, and every edition I picked up stopped me cold before the book ever really began. Not so with this 2009 B&N edition. Of course, the book is so long, I occasionally regretted gaining access to it in any case.
The Barnes and Noble Edition has some interesting features. It has reproduced the original manuscript as it was printed back in 1868. Collins had fun with capitalization along with everything else, and this is clear from the reproduction.
The other thing of interest are the comments at the end of the book. I had to read the first 300 pp to appreciate this part of the book. The Moonstone is a little infuriating, after all. Collins strings the story out, with plots strings dangling to the very last paragraph. By page 300 I forced myself to surmise what happened to the Moonstone just to stay sane. The comments of critics and contemporaries from the nineteenth century is comforting. Charles Dickens bitched a little about his associate's methods in writing The Moonstone.
After page 300, I was really grinding my teeth the rest of the book. In an introduction to the Lady in White Collins mentions writing a book from the point of view of 12 jurists at a murder trial. That explains how he structures The Moonstone. This is the first detective novel, and all the conventions are there: The red herring, the bumbling official police investigator and so on. This great edition brought it all to life.
****(out of 5)
