Piedra Lunar, La - by Wilkie Collins (Paperback)

About the Book

At the Verinder family's coastal mansion, a fascinating and ancient jewel arrives as an inheritance on Rachel Verinder's eighteenth birthday: La Piedra Lunar (The Moonstone), a diamond stolen from a Hindu shrine, laden with mystery and foreboding. That night, under the warm glow of candlelight, it vanishes without a trace, and its absence unleashes a plot of suspicions, secret passions, and conflicting obsessions. Narrated through multiple voices -- from the ironic butler Gabriel Betteredge to the perceptive detective Sergeant Cuff -- this pioneering masterpiece of the detective genre weaves a web of intrigue that challenges every assumption. Fractured families, feuding lovers, and relentless pursuers cross paths in an investigation as meticulous as it is unpredictable. Love, betrayal, and justice intertwine with a narrative ingenuity that revolutionized the modern novel. Each testimony adds another piece to the puzzle, while a trail of red herrings and unexpected discoveries keeps the reader on edge until the last page. La piedra lunar (The Moonstone) garnered lucid and uncompromising admiration from Jorge Luis Borges. For him, it was not merely an effective novel, but a literary invention of the first order, a model of the world, where truth always arrives late and never fully.

About the Author

Wilkie Collins (London, January 8, 1824-September 23, 1889) was a major 19th-century British novelist and a pioneer of sensation and detective fiction. The son of painter William Collins, he traveled in Europe as a youth and studied law at Lincoln's Inn, a background that informed his intricate legal plots. A close friend and collaborator of Charles Dickens, he serialized widely and achieved lasting fame with The Woman in White (1860) and The Moonstone (1868), the latter often cited as a forerunner of modern detective fiction. His other notable works include No Name (1862), Armadale (1866), and The Law and the Lady (1875). Plagued by ill health and laudanum use later in life, he died in London, leaving an enduring influence on suspense narrative and character-driven storytelling.