Illustrated by Juan Esteban Rodríguez
Introduced by Val McDermid
Limited to 750 hand-numbered copies
The first great English detective novel, Wilkie Collins’ The Moonstone is presented in a Folio Society limited edition of 750 numbered copies. Featuring a fascinating introduction by Val McDermid and new illustrations by Juan Esteban Rodríguez, each copy has been signed by both the introducer and the illustrator.
‘The first, the longest and the best of modern, English detective novels.’
- T. S. Eliot
A priceless gem, a diamond from India imbued with religious significance, is stolen on the very night it is given as an eighteenth birthday present to a captivating heiress; and so the mystery begins. The rules for the golden age of crime novels are formed in the pages of The Moonstone – an English country house, a complex cast of characters, the bungling local constabulary, a celebrated sleuth and the reconstruction of the crime. Collins’ intricate, ingenious plot combines suspense, drama and romance with an astute commentary on society in a richly humorous novel told through a series of narratives related by a variety of voices.
Doyenne of crime writing, Val McDermid has contributed a superb new introduction exploring her fascination with The Moonstone and charting its influence on the detective fiction genre, whilst Juan Esteban Rodríguez’ atmospheric illustrations, with a restrained palette redolent of early photographs, perfectly complement the novel. Both the introducer and the illustrator have signed each hand-numbered copy. Quarter-bound in indigo leather blocked in gold foils and with cloth sides printed with a panoramic view of Lady Verinder’s country house, this is the ideal edition in which to uncover the mystery of the missing diamond.
Letterpress-printed limitation tip signed by Val McDermid and Juan Esteban Rodríguez
Quarter-bound in indigo leather blocked in gold foils
Cloth-covered sides printed with design by the artist
Set in Portrait printed on Munken Pure paper
536 pages
10 illustrations including 2 double-page spreads printed on Natural Evolution Ivory paper
Gilded page tops
Ribbon marker
Endpapers printed with a design in gold ink on Sirio paper
Cloth-covered slipcase blocked in gold foils
10˝ x 7˝
‘So, as with all the best stories, in the end it’s character that brings us back to a book, that draws us in and makes its mark on us.’
- Val McDermid, from her Introduction
First published in 1868 in 32 instalments, in Charles Dickens’ All the Year Round in the UK and in Harper’s Weekly in the US, The Moonstone was an immediate sensation and remains hugely influential on writers of detective fiction. As Val McDermid notes in her introduction, few crime and mystery novels shine as brightly and ‘to find out how they do it, the reader must turn to the motherlode and listen to the voices that Wilkie Collins summoned up for us’.
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