The Content Reader

The first book I read by Wilkie Collins was The Moonstone , considered to be one of the first detective stories in the English language. It was written in 1868. I really loved it; the way it was written and the story. To my surprise, The Woman in White was written earlier, already in 1859. By this time Collins had become friends with Charles Dickens and this novel, as most of his other novels, were serialised before they were printed. That is, of course, why it is such a long book. By the time I had read about one third, I could not possibly imagine what was going to take place in the next two thirds of the book. Well, I was about to see. The more I got into the book, the more difficult it was to put down. I really loved it. The story absolutely fascinated me, and although it is one of those ’slow’ books where nothing much seem to happen, there is a continuous development of the story, in its own slow pace. 
 It is built up by extracts of most, but not all, of the persons i...

This book is regarded as the first detective novel written in the English language. There are other contestants like Edgar Allan Poe's short mystery stories The Murders in the Rue Morgue (1841) and The Purloined Letter (1845) which were published before the Moonstone (1868). However that is, all stories are great. T.S. Eliot called it "the first, the longest, and the best of modern English detective novels in a genre invented by Collins and not by Poe". Dorothy L. Sayers says: "probably the very finest detective story ever written!. G.K Chesterton calls it "Probably the best detective tale in the world". The story introduces the always fascinating mystery of the 'locked-room'. Collins also introduces here elements that has become classic attributes in detective stories up to our days, such as; "English country house robbery, an "inside job", red herrings, a celebrated, skilled, professional investigator, bungling local constabular...