The Moonstone, a priceless yellow diamond, is looted from an Indian temple and maliciously bequeathed to Rachel Verinder. On her eighteenth birthday, her friend and suitor Franklin Blake brings the gift to her. That very night, it is stolen again.

The Woman in White (1859-60) is the first and greatest 'Sensation Novel'. Walter Hartright's mysterious midnight encounter with the woman in white draws him into a vortex of crime, poison, kidnapping, and international intrigue. The novel is dominated by two of the finest creations in all Victorian fiction - Marion Halcombe, dark, mannish, yet irresistibly fascinating, and Count Fosco, the ...

John Sutherland provides a fascinating introduction to a new edition of what T.S.Eliot called 'the first and greatest of all English detective novels'.

When Rachel Verinder receives a gift of an astonishing yellow diamond from her bitter old uncle for her eighteenth birthday, she has no idea that the stone brings great danger with it. When the diamond goes missing during the night the ensuing investigations gradually bring to light the sinister history of the jewel.

This classic novel opens with Walter Hartright's eerie encounter on a moonlit London road. Engaged as a drawing master to the beautiful Laura Fairlie, Walter is drawn into the sinister intrigues of Sir Percival Glyde and his charming friend Count Fosco.

Marian and her sister Laura live a quiet life under their uncle's guardianship until Laura's marriage to Sir Percival Glyde. Sir Percival is a man of many secrets. Hence, Marian and the girls' drawing master, Walter, have to turn detective in order to work out what is going on, and to protect Laura from a fatal plot.

In love with the beautiful heiress Laura Fairlie, the impoverished art teacher Walter Henright finds his romantic designs thwarted by the scheming of the wicked Sir Percival and his sinister ally Count Fosco. The mystery and intrigue are deepened by the ghostly appearances of a woman in white, harbouring a secret that concerns Sir Percival's past.

After the tragic deaths of their parents, Magdalen and Norah discover the devastating news that they are both illegitimate and not entitled to any inheritance. Norah is forced to become a governess to earn her keep but Magdalen has grander plans and embarks on an elaborate scheme of revenge against her cold-hearted relatives.

Magdalen Vanstone and her sister Norah learn the true meaning of social stigma in Victorian England only after the traumatic discovery that their dearly loved parents, whose sudden deaths have left them orphans, were not married at the time of their birth. Disinherited by law and brutally ousted from Combe-Raven, the idyllic country estate which has been their peaceful home since childhood, the .

A collection of strange stories from Wilkie Collins, author of The Woman in White and The Moonstone . It also includes the novella, The Haunted Hotel , a combination of detective and ghost story set in Venice, a city of waterways and death. The action takes place in an ancient palazzo converted into a modern hotel that houses a grisly secret.

Writings by Charles Dickens, Oscar Wilde, Anthony Trollope, Wilkie Collins and others, accompany Gustave Dore's London engravings.

Explores the divided self, and the need to acknowledge the darker side of the personality: a modern theme grafted on to a traditional melodrama, and worked out with all of Collins's skill in handling a complex plot.

Wilkie Collins's fifth novel, The Dead Secret explores the relationship between a fallen woman, her illegitimate daughter and the recovery of a hidden secret. Set in rugged Cornwall, the novel blends romance with Gothic drama, and in characterization and setting, clearly anticipates the qualities of Collins's next novel, The Woman in White.

Newly edited collection of tales compiled by Dickens and featuring works by Wilkie Collins, Adelaide Anne Procter, Harriet Parr, Percy Fitzgerald and the Rev James White.