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"Literary." — Harper's Review of The Moonstone, 22 August 1867, page 531. [Click on the image to enlarge it.]
Scanned image and text by Philip V. Allingham.
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Illustrations courtesy of the E. J. Pratt Fine Arts Library, University of Toronto, and the Irving K. Barber Learning Centre, University of British Columbia.
"The Moonstone" by WILKIE COLLINS, was concluded in Harper's Weekly two weeks ago [i. e., 8 August], and is one of the most remarkable and fascinating of recent tales. The novelty of the consummate skill of the handling, and the unabated interest of the story, are striking. MR. COLLINS is the only eminent novelist of the time who rests his work upon the ingenuity of the plot and its development. All his characters are subordinated to this [principle]. Love itself, the master-passion, is only an accessory of the mystery. The weekly numbers of this tale are seized with the eagerness with which an important letter is opened and read, or rather devoured. Yet, if the chief interest is in the development of the plot, there is often a very vivid portrayal of character in MR. COLLINS'S novels. Count Fosco, in The Woman in White is an instance of this; it is one of the most successful individualizations of the day. And in "The Moonstone" the character of Miss Clack, although less delicately drawn, and with a feeling of animosity which is artistically injurious, is yet a forcible type, and very sure to be remembered. We promise every reader a most exciting and entertaining story in "The Moonstone." Nor ought we to omit a word of especial praise for the illustrations [in the July volume, based on those in the serial], which are many, and which are drawn with the most sympathetic appreciation of the text and often with a poetic delicacy and distinctive character that very greatly enhance the the interest and value of the work. — "Notice," 22 August 1868, p. 531.
Collins, Wilkie. The Moonstone: A Romance. with sixty-six illustrations. Harper's Weekly: A Journal of Civilization. Vol. 12 (1868), 4 January through 8 August, pp. 5-503.
________. The Moonstone: A Romance. All the Year Round. 1 January-8 August 1868.
_________. The Moonstone: A Novel. With many illustrations. First edition. New York & London: Harper and Brothers, [July] 1868.
_________. The Moonstone: A Novel. With 19 illustrations. Second edition. New York & London: Harper and Brothers, 1874.
_________. The Moonstone: A Romance. Illustrated by George Du Maurier and F. A. Fraser. London: Chatto and Windus, 1890.
_________. The Moonstone, Parts One and Two. The Works of Wilkie Collins, vols. 5 and 6. New York: Peter Fenelon Collier, 1900.
_________. The Moonstone: A Romance. With four illustrations by John Sloan. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1908.
_________. The Moonstone: A Romance. Illustrated by A. S. Pearse. London & Glasgow: Collins, 1910, rpt. 1930.
_________. The Moonstone. Illustrated by William Sharp. New York: Doubleday, 1946.
_________. The Moonstone: A Romance. With nine illustrations by Edwin La Dell. London: Folio Society, 1951.
Farmer, Steve. "Introduction" to Wilkie Collins's The Moonstone. Peterborough, ON: Broadview, 1999. Pp. 8-34.
Karl, Frederick R. "Introduction." Wilkie Collins's The Moonstone. Scarborough, Ontario: Signet, 1984. Pp. 1-21.
Leighton, Mary Elizabeth, and Lisa Surridge. "The Transatlantic Moonstone: A Study of the Illustrated Serial in Harper's Weekly." Victorian Periodicals Review Volume 42, Number 3 (Fall 2009): pp. 207-243. Accessed 1 July 2016. http://englishnovel2.qwriting.qc.cuny.edu/files/2014/01/42.3.leighton-moonstone-serializatation.pdf
Lonoff, Sue. Chapter 7, "The Moonstone and Its Audience." Wilkie Collins and His Readers: A Study of the Rhetoric of Authorship. New York: AMS Press, 1982. Pp. 170-230.
Nayder, Lillian. Unequal Partners: Charles Dickens, Wilkie Collins, & Victorian Authorship. London and Ithaca, NY: Cornll U. P., 2001.
Peters, Catherine. The King of the Inventors: A Life of Wilkie Collins. London: Minerva, 1991.
Reed, John R. "English Imperialism and the Unacknowledged crime of The Moonstone. Clio 2, 3 (June, 1973): 281-290.
Stewart, J. I. M. "A Note on Sources." Wilkie Collins's The Moonstone. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1966, rpt. 1973. Pp. 527-8.
Vann, J. Don. "The Moonstone in All the Year Round, 4 January-8 1868." Victorian Novels in Serial. New York: Modern Language Association, 1985. Pp. 48-50.
Winter, William. "Wilkie Collins." Old Friends: Being Literary Recollections of Other Days. New York: Moffat, Yard, & Co., 1909. Pp. 203-219.
Last updated 21 September 2016