Detective Methods and Genre Standards Theme in The Moonstone

Wilkie Collins’s The Moonstone follows Lady Julia Verinder’s family and employees in their attempt to retrieve the priceless diamond of the book’s title—which was first plundered by her brother, “the wicked Colonel” John Herncastle, during a violent colonial conquest in India, then gifted to Julia’s daughter Rachel on her birthday, and finally stolen from the Verinder estate that same night. T.S. Eliot famously called the book “the first, the longest, and the best of modern English detective novels,” a reputation that is well-deserved: although Arthur Conan Doyle’s detective Sherlock Holmes and the works of Agatha Christie remain the detective genre’s best-known exemplars, The Moonstone not only predated and influenced these subsequent works, but in fact singlehandedly set the template for mystery novels for at least the next century. From the realization that the thief must be in the family’s inner circle to the eccentric, shrewd character of Sergeant Cuff, who sees damning evidence in details others fail to detect, and finally to the hidden feuds, divisions, and romances exposed as the investigation takes over the family’s lives, The Moonstone’s emphasis on uncovering the hidden truth of events by interpreting and following the clues—and on forcing the reader to do this alongside the book’s litany of detective figures—turned it into the foundation for an entire, massively popular genre.

The novel’s plot revolves around the search for the lost Moonstone, a thrilling and suspenseful process of investigation that proceeds through the careful investigation and analysis of evidence. Nearly all of Collins’s characters find themselves suspected of the theft at one point or another, including the disfigured maid and reformed convict Rosanna Spearman, the three Indian Brahmins who mysteriously show up at the Verinder estate after the Diamond’s theft, Rachel Verinder’s cousins and love interests Franklin Blake and Godfrey Ablewhite, Rachel’s maid Penelope Betteredge, and even Rachel herself. Everyone is under suspicion and everything is a possible clue, and the Verinder estate turns from a normal manor into a sea of possible evidence and red herrings. Indeed, when the prototypically savvy detective Sergeant Cuff gets involved in the case, he determines that a small smear on the paint of Rachel’s door will lead to the thief.

This kind of investigation is the template for the rest of the novel: characters discover a new clue, follow it until it reveals something about another character, and then revise their theory of the theft accordingly. Later, Franklin Blake discovers an incontestable piece of evidence naming himself as the culprit, which leaves the case seemingly insoluble. He then makes a breakthrough when the doctor Ezra Jennings figures out that his actions can be attributed to opium—but Jennings only does this by analyzing his own set of clues: the ill doctor Mr. Candy’s disjointed words that are actually Candy’s attempt at telling a coherent story. This means of investigation is a powerful metaphor for the detection process whose unraveling forms the centerpiece of the book.

By highlighting the similarities between literary interpretation and the investigation of clues—both of which involve picking significant information out of a sea of possible clues and using that information to develop a holistic theory—the novel also turns the reader into the detective. First, although the entire novel is narrated in retrospect (after the Diamond has long been lost and the culprits discovered), the reader is made to follow along with the investigation, learning each bit of information as it is revealed to each narrator. The narrators repeatedly insist that they must refrain from offering more details and instead limit themselves to what they knew at the time about which they are writing. Indeed, the novel’s multiple narrators add to the investigative work the reader must undertake in order to figure out what really happened, just as the multiple suspects add to the detectives’ work. From the stoic, traditional, sexist Gabriel Betteredge to the obstinate, moralistic Miss Clack, to Franklin Blake, who edits and compiles the narratives but is also partially responsible for the crime, all of the narrators have their own biases and perspectives on one other. The novel’s internal twists, turns, and cliffhangers are also products of its original serialized format: like many Victorian novels, it was published through weekly installments. Not only did this mean that the novel’s dedicated readers quite literally spent a year guessing and waiting to learn who was the culprit, but it also means that Collins had a chance to respond to the novel’s growing popularity and the readers’ suspicions.

Through both its subject matter and its relationship to the reader, The Moonstone set important precedents for subsequent detective fiction. The characters’ attitudes toward clues—everything is a potential clue, and no stone may be left unturned—is a central trope in nearly all the mystery fiction that followed. So is the realization that the thief must be among the apparent protagonists, and the discovery that he or she is one of the least suspicious of all. Even the book’s setting has become a cliché: to the cotemporary reader, an English country manor is often synonymous with mystery, suspense, and horror stories. And, of course, the reading experience of the detective novel—which extended in the twentieth century to the viewing experience of police and crime thrillers on TV—remains deeply indebted to Collins’s decision to bring the reader along with the investigation.

Perhaps unbeknownst to its author, The Moonstone’s “detective fever” would catch on for generations to come. And yet it is much more than the typical detective novels that followed it: not only is it the novel that made these subsequent works possible, but by turning detective into reader and reader into detective it also makes an important commentary on the nature of literary interpretation: one must consider everything as a possible clue and follow those which produce a coherent story about the intentions underlying a text—or crime.

Detective Methods and Genre Standards ThemeTracker

The ThemeTracker below shows where, and to what degree, the theme of Detective Methods and Genre Standards appears in each chapter of The Moonstone. Click or tap on any chapter to read its Summary & Analysis.

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