However, this does help explain Rachel’s behavior towards him after the theft, and he visits her, whereupon she confirms that she “saw [him] take the Diamond with [her] own eyes!” She is still furious at him, but also clearly still loves him. The novel begins in India, with a Prologue written by an anonymous member of the Verinder family, a cousin and fellow soldier to the Colonel John Herncastle. Episode 2. Franklin is vindicated, and Franklin and Rachel are reconciled and engaged. The novel’s long first section is set in Yorkshire in 1848, at the residence of the Lady Julia Verinder and her wealthy family. Rosanna, who also seems to have feelings for Franklin, begins behaving erratically and arouses everyone’s suspicion. The Moonstone is a magnificent yellow diamond 'large as a plover's egg' which had originally adorned the forehead of the Hindu moon-god. Franklin took the diamond under the influence of the drug, reacting to his anxiety about the safety of the gem. 10. Read The Moonstone online by Wilkie Collins at ReadCentral.com, the free online library full of thousands of classic books. He proposes an ambitious experiment: they will recreate the events of the previous year, from Franklin quitting smoking to resetting the house exactly as it was on the night of the theft, and then slip Franklin laudanum again and see what happens. Instant downloads of all 1388 LitChart PDFs At dinner, 24 guests join the family, including the eccentric and socially inept doctor Mr. Candy, who argues with Franklin about the value of his profession, and the mysterious Anglo-Indian traveler Mr. Murthwaite, who scares away the three Indians when they return to the house that night and tells Franklin and Betteredge that the Diamond puts its owner in serious danger. It connects every detail of the plot to the great imperial drama of India, the society over which Queen … Cuff correctly determines that Godfrey has been leading a double life. Part 1 of 2 of The Moonstone by Wilkie COLLINS (1824 - 1889). Furthermore, as an epistolary novel, The Moonstone consists of a range of narratives which have been compiled together by one of the protagonists, a Mr Franklin Blake, to give an account of the theft and recovery of the Indian diamond. Ezra Jennings’s journal, the next section of the narrative, covers the preparations leading up to his “experiment” with Franklin Blake; most importantly, he enlists Gabriel Betteredge and Mr. Bruff to act as witnesses to the experiment, although they are both quite reluctant and lack faith in Jennings’s science. He goes to Yorkshire and receives the letter Rosanna has left with Limping Lucy, in which Rosanna directs him to pull up a chain at the Shivering Sand. Franklin proclaims that the Diamond carries a curse or at least a conspiracy—Herncastle lived the rest of his “solitary, vicious, underground life” estranged from his family, receiving death threats, and paranoid that he would be killed for the Diamond. After some digressions, he recounts the multi-talented but spendthrift “universal genius” Franklin Blake’s return to England at the age of 25, after more than a decade living and attending schools in Europe, to which his eccentric father had sent him. Charged by their Vishnu and their Moon God to constantly follow the Diamond, the Three Brahmin Indian Priests follow the Moonstone from India to England and back to India. Franklin agrees, and they begin preparing for the experiment, which Ezra Jennings recounts in detail in his journal. From the creators of SparkNotes, something better. Even the young girl who owns the diamond won't say whom she saw took it. The anonymous narrator begins by tracing the Moonstone’s history, which begins in the ancient temple of Somnauth, where the Diamond was embedded in the head of a statue of the Hindu moon god. A debased Englishman steals the moonstone, a sacred gem, from India. The novel’s second narrator is the hypocritical Christian fanatic Miss Clack, Julia’s estranged niece. But when Rachel decides to leave home for some time, Cuff determines that the Diamond was never stolen, and that Rachel still has it. The sinister mystery of the East The original crime in The Moonstone, the theft of the Tippoo diamond after the fall of Seringapatam, is probably Collins’s masterstroke. The story begins with Colonel Herncastle, the older and rather unkind uncle of Rachel Verinder, returning … At the Shivering Sand, Franklin reveals a secret to Betteredge: he has the Moonstone, which the late Colonel Herncastle has willed to Rachel Verinder as her 18th birthday present. Just minutes thereafter, Julia dies downstairs (but Clack decides not to attend her funeral). The object of everyone's attention is the Moonstone, a beautiful and flawed diamond that was stolen from the statue of a moon good from a shrine in a remote area of India. The novel ends with a series of brief narratives. It opens with the theft of the titular Moonstone, an extremely valuable diamond, from Miss Rachel Verinder, who has … Ezra Jennings, assistant to Lady Verinder's doctor, Dr. Candy, provides an explanation. Mr. Candy fell ill the night of Rachel's birthday and had been nearly unintelligible since, but Jennings believes that Candy had given Franklin a dose of opium without telling him in order to settle a dispute about modern medicine. But the bank is still the safest place for the Diamond, and Franklin leaves it there for the month until Rachel’s birthday. The novel’s Epilogue, in three short narratives, explains how the Indians brought the Moonstone back to their country and managed to evade the British authorities who tried to intercept them along the way. With Joshua Silver, Leo Wringer, Terenia Edwards, Nisa Cole. Eliot as the first and greatest of English detective novels. This hypothesis is proven when Jennings stages a reenactment of the night the gem was stolen, and Franklin replicates his actions exactly, again under the influence of opium. (including. In the morning, the diamond is gone and Superintendent Seegrave of the local police is called. Prologue: 1. The Moonstone Language: English: LoC Class: PR: Language and Literatures: English literature: Subject: England -- Fiction Subject: Country homes -- Fiction Subject: Police -- England -- Fiction Subject: Jewelry theft -- Fiction Subject: East Indians -- England -- Fiction Subject: Mystery fiction Category: Text: EBook-No. His identity and the origin of his narrative add to the mystery surrounding the Moonstone and its curse. Seegrave proves himself inept, and Franklin calls for the famed Sergeant Cuff of London to take over the case. Audio languages. When the gem disappears from a young Englishwoman’s room and three Back in London, Mr. Bruff has tracked the diamond from Septimus Luker to a sailor with a dark complexion. Herncastle steals the sacred Moonstone, dies, and bequeaths the gem to his niece before the start of the novel. Indeed, Franklin has noticed a suspicious Indian-looking man follow him to the bank whenever he has business concerning the Moonstone, and he thinks he might have something to do with the three jugglers who have mysteriously shown up in Yorkshire. Struggling with distance learning? Betteredge has been given the job of … The Moonstone opens with a "family document" that records how the Moonstone (a huge, yellow diamond) was stolen in India by an English soldier and was taken back to England. saw [him] take the Diamond with [her] own eyes. Unabridged audiobook. Cuff realizes, however, that the sailor is wearing a disguise; he pulls it off and reveals the man he had come to suspect of the crime: Godfrey Ablewhite. 44min. When he arrives, he remembers his history with Rachel and determines to win back her heart, or at least discover why she so suddenly turned against him after the Moonstone’s theft and has refused to contact him since. Astonished, Franklin begins to drink while he and Betteredge read Rosanna’s letter. Detailed explanations, analysis, and citation info for every important quote on LitCharts. The same day as Franklin’s arrival, three Indian men who appear to be traveling magicians come to the Verinder estate, presumably looking for a place to stay, which Betteredge’s daughter Penelope plans to give them. Franklin, under in the influence of opium, had given the gem to Godfrey after taking it from Rachel's room and asked Godfrey to store it safely in his father's bank. Local police officer Superintendent Seegrave comes to the scene and declares that the thief is “some person in the house.” He ruthlessly interrogates everyone, infuriates Rachel, and searches the servants’ possessions. Summary Plot Overview The Moonstone opens with a written account of the large, yellow, Moonstone diamond, sacred to Hindus as the centerpiece in their idol of the god of the Moon. Lady Verinder's household is in disarray at the startling news of Rosanna's death and the incredible news of Cuff's suspicion of honest Rachel. Colonel Herncastle, an unpleasant former soldier, brings the Moonstone back with him from India where he acquired it by theft and murder during the Siege of Seringapatam. Cuff suspects Rosanna Spearman, a housemaid of Lady Verinder's and a reformed thief, of having played a part in the theft. The Moonstone, by Wilke Collins, is an exciting nineteenth century English detective story. But she killed herself when he continued to ignore her. Rachel herself also insists on being present, as she hopes the experiment will exonerate Franklin, and her new guardian, the histrionic Mrs. Merridew, insists on accompanying her as a “chaperone.” On the night of the experiment, Jennings slips Franklin the laudanum and talks to him about the Diamond; at night, Franklin gets up in a daze and walks to Rachel’s room, grabs the experiment’s decoy Diamond, and falls asleep in Rachel’s sitting-room. The next short narrative is a letter from Mr. Candy, in which he recounts Ezra Jennings’s death and burial in an unmarked grave. The Moonstone Summary. They're like having in-class notes for every discussion!”, “This is absolutely THE best teacher resource I have ever purchased. The idea was for the novel itself to be like a collection of evidence so that the readers could be put in the position of the detective (or even a jury! Franklin continues investigating, hoping to clear his name. With Greg Wise, Keeley Hawes, Terrence Hardiman, Mellan Mitchell. Sure enough, the next morning, someone has stolen the Diamond from Rachel’s cabinet, although the Indians could not have possibly entered the house. Herncastle returns to England with the stone. On Rachel’s birthday, Franklin gives Rachel the Diamond, and Lady Julia is immediately distraught to hear it has come from her estranged brother. He had been killed by the Indians, who have returned to India with the Moonstone and restored it to the forehead of their idol. • Rachel Verinder inherits her uncle's Indian Diamond on her eighteenth birthday. Fortunately, Candy’s assistant Ezra Jennings, a hideous and terminally ill but sincere and ambitious fellow doctor, has managed to piece together Candy’s disconnected thoughts and learned that, on the night of Rachel’s birthday, Candy slipped laudanum (opium) into Franklin’s drink after dinner as a practical joke; they had been arguing about the value of medicine, and Franklin had been sleeping badly because he recently quit smoking. Wilkie Collins's The Moonstone is a seminal work in the field of detective literature. I know I will. After their meeting, Franklin returns to Yorkshire, where he meets with the old family doctor Mr. Candy, who fell sick on the night of Rachel’s birthday and has never recovered—unable to hold a train of thought, Candy insists he has something to tell Franklin but cannot remember what it is. He had two options: take from Rachel’s estate, or sell the Moonstone. 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