Line #66 Literature/TheMoonstone


1	[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/the_moonstone.png]]
2	Published in 1868 as a magazine serial, ''The Moonstone'' by Creator/WilkieCollins is English literature's first detective novel and still one of the best. The story is told by several different narrators who, according to the framing story, have been asked to write down their involvement by the hero.
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4	Lovely young Rachel Verinder receives an unexpected and (to her mother) unwelcome 18th birthday present from her late uncle, the family BlackSheep. Mr. Murthwaite, a famous explorer and one of the party guests, tells Rachel and Mrs. Verinder that the large yellow diamond was stolen from a Hindu idol 20 or 30 years before and that the Indian 'jugglers' who entertain the party are nothing of the kind but, most probably, Hindu priests trying to regain their sacred stone. That very night, the diamond disappears.
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6	Rachel has two suitors, both her first cousins, Godfrey Ablewhite and Franklin Blake, staying in the house. It soon becomes clear that she suspects Blake of being the thief. The detective called in on the case, Sergeant Cuff, on the other hand, suspects Rachel herself, along with one of the maids, who has a criminal background. The true solution proves to be much more complex than either theory, involving several parties, all with their own unconnected motives.
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8	The novel is noteworthy not only for codifying, if not originating, many DetectiveFiction tropes, but for being a compelling work of social critique and examination. The narrators include the butler to an aristocratic house, a penniless spinster with a Vocation, and a doctor who is explicitly of mixed race. These are all characters on the fringe of Society, yet Collins gives them voices and important roles in observing and reporting the story's action. He also touches deftly on themes of imperialism and colonialism, as well as medicine and drug addiction.
9	----
10	!!This story provides examples of:
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12	* ADayInHerApron: Subverted. One of Betteredge's anecdotes about his wife is about a time when she refused to cook his dinner -- so he did it himself, and (by his own account) cooked it without difficulty and left the kitchen spotless.
13	* AllLoveIsUnrequited: Poor Rosanna Spearman. Drusilla Clack, it is implied, might be in love with Godfrey Ablewhite -- she sure talks about the "religious fervor" he inspires in her in very passionate ways.
14	* AndAnotherThing: [[spoiler:One of the Indians]] visits the offices of a couple barristers merely to form an excuse to ask one final question before leaving.
15	* AwfulWeddedLife: Betteredge has nothing good to say about his deceased wife and expresses his gratitude that Penelope is nothing like her.
16	* BabiesEverAfter
17	* BeautyEqualsGoodness: Not intentionally but various characters seem to display a subconscious prejudice towards those considered unattractive. Franklin Blake is dismissive of 'ugly' Rosanna and oblivious to her clear affections for him, though Sergeant Cuff points out that he would have found out fast enough if she had been better-looking. However he gets on very well with Ezra Jennings, whose piebald hair and 'gipsy complexion' turns many people off him, while Mr. Bruff and Betteredge are openly dismissive and sceptical of his involvement in the investigation, until it is proven correct. TruthInTelevision [[ValuesDissonance in that the book was published during the Victorian Era.]]
18	--> '''Sergeant Cuff:''' The ugly women have a bad time of it in this world; let's hope it will be made up to them in another.
19	* BewilderingPunishment: Franklin has no idea why Rachel is suddenly so angry and cold towards him. [[spoiler: Not until she tells him that she "saw him take the Moonstone with her own eyes."]]
20	* BlackSheep: General Herncastle, Rachel's wicked uncle. He committed many crimes in India as a soldier, and for that and other reasons he is ''persona non grata'' to the rest of the family. His gift to Rachel is so unexpected it's immediately suspicious.
21	* BrokenBird: Rosanna Spearman of course, but also the unlikeable Miss Clack.
22	* BookEnds: The prologue and epilogue are set in India.
23	* CallToAgriculture: Sergeant Cuff retires to cultivate roses.
24	* ChekhovsGunman: [[spoiler:Dr Candy and Ezra Jennings.]]
25	* CrimeReconstruction: Used to figure out what happened to the Moonstone.
26	* CringeComedy:
27	** Drusilla Clack's chapter, which consists largely of her attempts to self-righteously proselytize at the most awkward and inappropriate times possible.
28	** Rachel's birthday dinner, during which everyone seems somehow incapable of making decent conversation, and whoever does try to make conversation manages to spectacularly put their foot in their mouth.
29	* DrivenToSuicide: [[spoiler:Rosanna at the Shivering Sands.]]
30	* EnlightenedAntagonist: The Hindu Brahmin priests, who seemingly possess some sort of supernatural powers, and who are perceived by the main characters as antagonistic because they intend to steal the stone and return it to India where it actually belongs.
31	* ExplosiveResults: [[DiscussedTrope Discussed]] [[PlayedForLaughs for laughs]]. Rachel's guardian Mrs Merridew is convinced that any scientific experiment will inevitably end in an explosion. Becomes a BrickJoke when Rachel needs to get her out of the way in a hurry, and achieves this by telling her the explosion's imminent.
32	* FamedInStory: Sergeant Cuff, who is known for discreetly solving various embarrassing conundrums the wealthy are faced with.
33	* GenkiGirl: Godfrey's sisters, whom Betteredge calls 'the Bouncers'.
34	-->Everything the Miss Ablewhites said began with a large O; everything they did was done with a bang; and they giggled and screamed, in season and out of season, on the smallest provocation.
35	* GreatDetective: Sergeant Cuff, who is looking forward to a long retirement where he can devote himself to his roses.
36	* HiddenVillain: [[spoiler: Godfrey, who seemed the most trustworthy, pious, and charitable of all (at least, he fooled the various narrators).]]
37	* HolierThanThou: Miss Clack.
38	* HopelessSuitor: Rosanna Spearman, being an ugly servant girl, for the wealthy socialite Franklin Blake. He doesn't even have a clue that she might be in love with him, and Betteredge bursts out laughing when first told about all that, because it's so ridiculous for Rosanna to be in love with an upper-class man.
39	* HowDidYouGetIt: The Moonstone is pawned to a moneylender. His first question is "How did you come by this?" and he refuses to lend anything until he's got a truthful answer.
40	* InTouchWithHisFeminineSide: Mr. Ezra Jennings says to Franklin Blake, "Some men are born with female constitutions... and I am one of them!" (He's crying TenderTears at the moment, and is shown to be emotional and gentle to his patients).
41	* KidDetective: Introduced in the last couple of chapters, "Gooseberry," a boy with large and prominent eyes, whom Cuff hires to track down a suspect. Cuff speaks very warmly of the boy's innate detective smarts.
42	* KissingCousins: Rachel seems unaware that there are eligible young men in England who are ''not'' related to her. The only suitors she considers in the entire book are her two first cousins.
43	* LazyBum: Mrs Ablewhite.
44	-->My Aunt Ablewhite is a large, silent, fair-complexioned woman, with one noteworthy point in her character. From the hour of her birth she has never been known to do anything for herself. She has gone through life accepting everybody's help, and adopting everybody's opinions.
45	* LemonyNarrator: Gabriel Betteridge
46	* LivingADoubleLife: [[spoiler: Godfrey Ablewhite, who seems to be a generous and courteous philanthropist, has actually been siphoning off money trusted to him for his ward's care, and keeps a mistress in the country.]]
47	* LoveAtFirstSight: Rosanna Spearman for Franklin Blake.
48	* LeaveTheTwoLovebirdsAlone: After proving Franklin Blake's innocence, Ezra Jennings sees Rachel waiting beside him as he begins to wake and leaves the room to let them be alone together.
49	* MaybeMagicMaybeMundane: The way the Indians unerringly track the Moonstone, at one point appearing to divine its location using a drop of ink in the palm of a hypnotised boy, although Mr. Murthwaite dismisses this as just for show.
50	* MeaningfulName: The moneylender called Luker -- a phonetic spelling of 'lucre'.
51	* MeasuringTheMarigolds: Gabriel Betteredge speaks out against gentlefolk who take up a "natural science" hobby in order to dissect flowers. He asks, "Is its perfume any better, or its color any prettier, when you ''do'' know?" But what he chiefly objects to isn't the science, but the callous and destructive way that gentlefolk pursue the hobby out of sheer boredom.
52	* MineralMacGuffin: The Moonstone itself, a large yellow diamond. The diamond would be more valuable if cut up into six or seven smaller stones, so General Herncastle keeps that option on hand--which also keeps the Indian priests at a distance, because they want the stone to remain whole.
53	* NoCelebritiesWereHarmed: Explorer Mr. Murthwaite is clearly based on the adventurer Richard Burton.
54	* NonIndicativeName: The title, insofar as it refers to a yellow ''diamond,'' and not the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moonstone_(gemstone) actual gem]] known as a moonstone. Nor is it a stone that comes from the moon, awesome as that would be; it's only sacred to (and stolen from an idol of) some Indian Moon god.
55	* OldRetainer: Gabriel Betteredge, who refers to his lady and Miss Verinder in the warmest of terms -- far more warmly, in fact, than he refers to his wife.
56	* PrecisionFStrike: From the senior Ablewhite: "Miss Jane Ann Stamper be ----!"
57	* QuicksandSucks: The Shivering Sand. Dangerous, but not an impossible trap. It's used by a certain character to [[spoiler:hide an incriminating piece of evidence, using a locked box and a chain, and to commit suicide]]. Actually a more realistic take on the trope, as the Shivering Sand is closer to a tidal mudflat, which is very dangerous and acts a bit more like quicksand-in-tropeland than quicksand in reality does.
58	* RedHerring: Innumerable! Rosanna Spearman is a noteworthy one, an ex-thief who now works in the Verinder house, and who acts awfully suspicious around Franklin Blake. Because she's head-over-heels for him. Rachel's peculiar behaviour also arouses some suspicion that she knows more than she's letting on. [[spoiler: Indeed she does but that is because she believes it was Franklin who stole the diamond.]]
59	* RedRightHand: Rosanna Spearman, ex-thief and maid, is a hunchback. Ezra Jennings, who has a dark secret in his past, has "piebald" hair (dark with white streaks, also quite curly). [[spoiler: Neither are bad people, and the true villain is handsome and healthy.]]
60	* RippedFromTheHeadlines:
61	** Herncastle acquired the Moonstone, under circumstances implied to be suspicious and shameful, while looting Seringapatam after the siege of 1799. Collins may well have been thinking of the (at the time of the book's writing) much more recent looting of other Indian artefacts by British soldiers during the Indian Mutiny.
62	** Betteredge has several discussions with other characters about whether more democracy is a good thing or not, which probably reflects the serial being written around the time of the passage of the Second Great Reform Act (1867) which expanded the voting franchise in the UK.
63	** Several aspects of the mystery, including the importance of a stained nightgown and suspicion falling on the teenaged daughter of the household, bear a resemblance to the Road Hill House murder in 1860. Sergeant Cuff also has similarities to both Detective Inspector Jack Whicher, who investigated that case, and his boss Dolly Williamson (whose love of gardening was the inspiration for Cuff's interest in roses).
64	* RunningGag:
65	** Betteredge's firm conviction that the answers to all of life's problems can be found within the pages of ''Literature/RobinsonCrusoe'', and him consulting it as though it were the Bible.
66	** Sergeant Cuff's obsession with roses, and in particular his never-ending SeriousBusiness argument with the Verinders' gardener about the best way to grow white musk roses.
67	* ScrapbookStory
68	* ShipperOnDeck: A Shipping War InUniverse, no less! Early in the book, Betteredge and his daughter, Penelope, butt heads over whether Rachel covets Godfrey Ablewhite's affections (Betteredge's view) or Franklin Blake (Penelope's).
69	* ShoutOut: Betteridge believes that ''Literature/RobinsonCrusoe'' contains all of the world's wisdom.
70	* SpiritedYoungLady: Rachel, maybe even a {{Tsundere}}.
71	* TheStakeout: Probably the earliest example.
72	* StealthInsult: Sergeant Cuff says to Gabriel Betteredge that he fancies himself to be tender-hearted towards the physically disabled (i.e. Rosanna Spearman)... and then, seeing that as Betteredge is being a little slow on the uptake, Cuff adds that he feels rather tender-hearted towards Betteredge.
73	* SwitchingPOV: The FramingDevice is Frankiln Blake gathering witness accounts on the entire affair for future perusal [[spoiler: of his and Rachel's descendants]].
74	* TakingTheHeat: The two main suspects (both female) turn out to have been independently covering for the same man, whom they both love, after seeing what each believes to be proof that he stole the eponymous gemstone.
75	* TreasureIsBiggerInFiction: The Moonstone itself is a big ol' hunk of polished diamond, maybe the size of a fist. However, a bit of realism for the gemstone-- big as the stone is, it has a flaw at its heart which reduces its value. If a skilled jeweler cut it into ''smaller'' stones, they could reap a real profit.
76	* TrueArtIsAncient: Mocked, In-Universe, by Ezra Jennings:
77	--> "All classical works; all (of course) immeasurably superior to anything produced in later times; and all (from my present point of view) possessing the one great merit of enchaining nobody's interest, and exciting nobody's brain."
78	* TwistEnding: Another very early example.
79	* TypeCaste: Collins correctly states that observant Hindus (such as the three priests, who are specified to be Brahmins) lose their caste when they cross the sea/large body of water.
80	* UnbuiltTrope:
81	** General Herncastle's GenreSavvy way of protecting himself from the three Indians over the years by legally engineering matters so the Moonstone will be broken up by jewellers if he is killed, in stark contrast to how many later stories would treat this sort of thing as an inevitable curse.
82	** Sergeant Cuff feels like a deconstruction of the GreatDetective trope as he is FamedInStory but, though doing much better than any other investigator for most of the story, fails to solve the mystery alone. However, he is arguably the first example of a FamedInStory GreatDetective in English literature!
83	* UrExample: Famously described by Creator/TSEliot as "the first and greatest of English detective novels".
84	* WhamEpisode: The chapter containing the revelations from Rachel and (posthumously) Rosanna regarding the thief's identity.
85	* WomenAreWiser: In regards to love, Penelope is the first to realize Rosanna's feelings for Franklin Blake. She's also correct that Rachel loves Franklin Blake instead of Godfrey Abelwhite.
86	* YearX: An interesting aversion compared to many contemporary works, instead giving exact dates for the story in the years 1848 and 1849 (about twenty years before it was written). Oddly, it never mentions the European revolutions of 1848 despite Drusilla Clack going to live in France and Franklin Blake also travelling through Europe at the time.
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88	!!Tropes found in the 1996 BBC adaptation:
89	* CompositeCharacter: Mr Murthwaite is written out; his lines are given to Doctor Candy. Similarly, Nancy is removed and Penelope gets her lines.
90	* CompressedAdaptation: The story jumps from Lady Verinder's death to Mr Blake senior's death, omitting the subplot where Rachel and Godfrey get engaged and then decide against marrying.
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92	!!Tropes found in the 2016 BBC adaptation:
93	* AdaptationalAngstUpgrade: Unlike in the book, [[spoiler:Rachel and Franklin]] aren't immediately reconciled by Ezra Jennings's experiment, and continue to suspect each other until the truth finally comes out.
94	* ComfortingComforter: [[spoiler:Rachel to Franklin, when he]] falls asleep at the end of Ezra Jennings's experiment.
95	* DeathByAdaptation: [[spoiler:Doctor Candy dies rather than just losing his memory.]]
96	* InMediasRes: The adaptation begins with the start of Franklin Blake's Third Narrative, then flashes back to the beginning once he meets Betteredge in Yorkshire.
97	* NarratorAllAlong: Each episode opens with the backstory of the diamond, told as a puppet show. At the end of the last episode, it's revealed that the show was being presented by [[spoiler:Franklin and Rachel's BabiesEverAfter]].
98	* RaceLift: Betteredge is West Indian, and Penelope is accordingly mixed-race.
99	* SexyShirtSwitch: It's hinted at in the book, but this adaptation makes it quite clear that Rosanna is turned on when she has to conceal [[spoiler:Franklin]]'s nightgown by wearing it under her clothes.
100	* ShirtlessScene: Franklin Blake and Godfrey Ablewhite each get one, with Rachel and Miss Clack, respectively, EatingTheEyeCandy.
101	* SparedByTheAdaptation: [[spoiler:Ezra Jennings.]]
102	* VomitIndiscretionShot: Penelope's reaction to the paint fumes is shown onscreen.

Context Literature / TheMoonstone