In the 1860s a new literary genre appeared. Lurid, shocking and too much for some Victorian sensibilities (one critic even described it as 'unspeakably disgusting'), the sensation novel peeped beneath the skirts of Victorian respectability and revealed a world of madness, bigotry, murder and violence. One of the best tellers of the sensational tale was Wilkie Collins. At times a clerk, lawyer and would-be painter, he was a great friend of that other purveyor of sensationalism, Charles Dickens.
The Moonstone, written in 1868, is a typically elaborate tale revolving around the theft of a fabulous diamond. Looted from an Indian shrine, the moonstone brings a curse upon all those who possess it. The book is a sprawling tale, written in three chunks each with a different narrator telling their version of the same events. Think Vantage Point, Victorian style.
As for the madness, murder and violence, there is plenty of it but compared to modern crime fiction, it's pretty genteel madness, murder and violence. More interestingly, The Moonstone is arguably the first English whodunnit and it's in this book that Collins establishes the conventions of the genre; the country house setting, the renowned detective, the large number of loosely related subjects and, of course, liberal amounts of red herrings. Collins also throws into the mix the quintessentially Victorian ingredients of India, opium and an obsession with the gothic.
I liked this book. Compared to the gritty crime dramas and forensic thrillers of today, it seems like tame fare but it's easy to see that The Moonstone would have scandalised and delighted Victorian readers. The plotting and interweaving of the different narratives is skillfully done but a lot of the appeal for me lies in the unintentional evocation of Victorian England.
Read On: I know Dickens is the Victorian sensationalist writer, but I have such a hard time when it comes to reading his novels. The Suspicions of Mr Whicher by Kate Summerscale is a modern retelling of a real-life crime that shocked Victorian society, while The Hound of the Baskervilles by Arthur Conan Doyle is a typically chilling whodunnit.
The Moonstone, written in 1868, is a typically elaborate tale revolving around the theft of a fabulous diamond. Looted from an Indian shrine, the moonstone brings a curse upon all those who possess it. The book is a sprawling tale, written in three chunks each with a different narrator telling their version of the same events. Think Vantage Point, Victorian style.
As for the madness, murder and violence, there is plenty of it but compared to modern crime fiction, it's pretty genteel madness, murder and violence. More interestingly, The Moonstone is arguably the first English whodunnit and it's in this book that Collins establishes the conventions of the genre; the country house setting, the renowned detective, the large number of loosely related subjects and, of course, liberal amounts of red herrings. Collins also throws into the mix the quintessentially Victorian ingredients of India, opium and an obsession with the gothic.
I liked this book. Compared to the gritty crime dramas and forensic thrillers of today, it seems like tame fare but it's easy to see that The Moonstone would have scandalised and delighted Victorian readers. The plotting and interweaving of the different narratives is skillfully done but a lot of the appeal for me lies in the unintentional evocation of Victorian England.
Read On: I know Dickens is the Victorian sensationalist writer, but I have such a hard time when it comes to reading his novels. The Suspicions of Mr Whicher by Kate Summerscale is a modern retelling of a real-life crime that shocked Victorian society, while The Hound of the Baskervilles by Arthur Conan Doyle is a typically chilling whodunnit.
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