The Moonstone
Author Wilkie Collins
Country United Kingdom
Language English
BBC 7 - First Broadcast 1979 - Recorded Sept. 2008
Media type 128/44 MP3
The Moonstone (1868) by Wilkie Collins is a 19th-century British epistolary novel, generally considered the first detective novel in the English language.
The Moonstone was originally serialized in Charles Dickens' magazine All the Year Round. The Moonstone and The Woman in White are considered Wilkie Collins' best novels. Besides creating many of the characteristics of detective novels, The Moonstone also represented Collins' social opinions by his treatment of the Indians and the servants in the novel. Collins adapted The Moonstone for the stage during 1877, but the production was performed for only two months.
Contents
Rachel Verinder, a young Englishwoman, inherits a large Indian diamond on her eighteenth birthday. It is a legacy from her uncle, a corrupt English army officer who served in India. The diamond is of great religious significance as well as being extremely valuable, and three Hindu priests have dedicated their lives to recovering it. The story incorporates elements of the legendary origins of the Hope Diamond (or perhaps the Orloff Diamond).
Rachel's eighteenth birthday is celebrated with a large party, whose guests include her cousin Franklin Blake. She wears the Moonstone on her dress that evening for all to see, including some Indian jugglers who have called at the house. Later that night, the diamond is stolen from Rachel's bedroom, and a period of turmoil, unhappiness, misunderstandings and ill-luck ensues. Told by a series of narratives from some of the main characters, the complex plot traces the subsequent efforts to explain the theft, identify the thief, trace the stone and recover it.
Explanation of the novel's title and Plot
The Moonstone of the title is a diamond (not to be confused with the semi-precious moonstone gem). It gained its name from its association with the Hindu god of the moon. Originally set in the forehead of a sacred statue of the god at Somnath, and later at Benares, it was said to be protected by hereditary guardians on the orders of Vishnu, and to wax and wane in brilliance along with the light of the moon.
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. Angry at his family, who shun him, he leaves it in his will as a birthday gift to his niece Rachel, thus exposing her to attack by the stone's hereditary guardians, who, legend says, will stop at nothing to retrieve it.
Rachel wears the stone to her birthday party, but that night it disappears from her room. Suspicion falls on three Indian jugglers who have been near the house; on Rosanna Spearman, a maidservant who begins to act oddly and who then drowns herself in a local quicksand; and on Rachel herself, who also behaves suspiciously and is suddenly furious with Franklin Blake, with whom she has previously appeared to be enamored, when he directs attempts to find it. Despite the efforts of Sergeant Cuff, a renowned detective, the house party ends with the mystery unsolved, and the protagonists disperse.......
The Characters
* Rachel Verinder – heiress and inheritor of the large Indian diamond known as "The Moonstone"
* Franklin Blake – Rachel Verinder's cousin and suitor
* Godfrey Ablewhite – philanthropist, also Rachel Verinder's cousin and hopeful suitor
* Gabriel Betteredge – the head servant, first narrator
* Rosanna Spearman – second housemaid, ex-thief, suspicious and tragic character
* Drusilla Clack – cousin to Rachel Verinder, second narrator, a self-righteous, religious tract-dispensing lady
* Mr. Bruff – family solicitor, third narrator
* Lady Verinder - Rachel's mother
* Sergeant Cuff – famous detective with a penchant for roses
* Dr. Candy – the family physician, loses his sanity to a fever
* Ezra Jennings – Dr. Candy's unpopular and odd looking assistant, suffers from an incurable illness and uses opium to control the pain
* Octavius Guy (aka 'Gooseberry') - a street boy who provides the key lead to uncover the thief
* The three Indians – Hindu Brahmins who are determined to recover the diamond
Replies
Thanks Bob, I had the 1979 date and changed it to 2008 when I saw the date of broadcast on the files. It just goes to show that the first choice is usually the one to go with. Thank You for the cast credits also. This one has been posted since 2010 and slipped through the cracks of Times Past into the abyss. I resurrected it when I was doing a search for the 2011-4 part version from Radio 4 to see if it was already here before I posted. ------------- R
Just for the record, this version was actually first broadcast in 1979.
CAST:
John Sharp as Gabriel Betteredge, John Telfer as Franklin Blake, Sally Baxter as Rachel Verinder, Geoffrey Beevers as Godfrey Ablewhite, Petra Davies as Lady Verinder, Tamrny Ustinov as Rosanna Spearman, Josie Kidd as Penelope Betteredge, Gordon Dulieu as Mr. Murthwaite, Danny Schiller as Mr. Candy, Geoffrey Serle as Indian, Crispian Balmer as Boy, Lisa Penny as Felicity Ablewhite, Deborah Jane Sharpe as Georgina Ablewhite, John Franklyn-Robbins as Sergeant Cuff, Matthew Adams as Samuel’l (footman), Debby Cumming as Duffy, Rex Holdsworth as Supt. Seegrave, Josephine Scott Matthews as Nancy, Tom Eastwood as Yolland, Nat Brenner as Mr. Bruff, June Barrie as Miss Clack, Liza Flanagan as Lucy Yolland, Adrian Egan as Septimus Luker, Margot Boyd as Aunt Ablewhite, Godfrey Kenton as Ablewhite Senior, Philip Sully as Ezra Jennings, Barkley Johnson as Hopkins/Landlord, Emlyn Harris as Woods/Waiter.
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