'In one moment, every drop of blood in my body was brought to a stop... There, as if it had that moment sprung out of the earth... stood the figure of a solitary Woman, dressed from head to foot in white. The Woman in White famously 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, who has a taste for white mice, vanilla bonbons and poison. Pursuing questions of identity and insanity along the paths and corridors of English country houses and the madhouse, The Woman in White is the first and most influential of the Victorian genre that combined Gothic horror with psychological realism. The Penguin English Library — 100 editions of the best fiction in English, from the eighteenth century and the very first novels to the beginning of the First World War.

«This is the «Penguin English Library Edition» of «The Moonstone» by Wilkie Collins. 'Here was our quiet English house suddenly invaded by a devilish Indian Diamond — bringing after it a conspiracy of living rogues, set loose on us by the vengeance of a dead man'. When Rachel Verinder's birthday present — the Moonstone, a large Indian diamond — is stolen at her party, suspicion and the diamond's mysterious curse seem set to ruin everyone and everything she loves. Only Sergeant Cuff's famous detective skills offer any hope of peace and a future for them all. The intricate plot and modern technique of multiple narrators made Wilkie Collin's 1868 work a huge success in the Victorian sensation genre. With a reconstruction of the crime, red herrings and a 'locked-room' puzzle, «The Moonstone» was also a major precursor of the modern mystery novel. «The Penguin English Library» — 100 editions of the best fiction in English, from the eighteenth century and the very first novels to the beginning of the First World War.»

The Moonstone is a beautiful yellow diamond that was stolen from the statue of a Moon god in India. When Franklin Blake brings it to Rachel Verinders house in Yorkshire for her birthday, it brings bad luck with it. How many people will the Moonstone hurt? How many must die before the diamonds revenge is complete?

In Basil's secret and unconsummated marriage to Margaret Sherwin, and the consequent horrors of betrayal, insanity, and death, Collins reveals the bustling, commercial London of the first half of the nineteenth century. Collins' treatment of adultery shocked contemporary reviewers, and even today the passionate and lurid atmosphere he created has the power to disturb the modern reader.

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.

The novel is dominated by two of the finest creations in all Victorian fiction — Marian Halcombe, dark, mannish, yet irresistibly fascinating, and Count Fosco, the sinister and flamboyant 'Napoleon of Crime'. A masterwork of intricate construction, The Woman in White set new standards for suspense and excitement, and achieved sales which topped even those of Dickens, Collins's friend and mentor.

This time the fiction is founded upon facts stated Wilkie Collins in his Preface to Man and Wife (1870). Many Victorian writers responded to contemporary debates on the rights and the legal status of women, and here Collins questions the deeply inequitable marriage laws of his day. Man and Wife examines the plight of a woman who, promised marriage by one man, comes to believe that she may inadvertently have gone through a form of marriage with his friend, as recognized by the archaic laws of Scotland and Ireland. From this starting-point Collins develops a radical critique of the values and conventions of Victorian society. Collins had already developed a reputation as the master of the sensation novel, and Man and Wife is as fast moving and unpredictable as The Moonstone and The Woman in White. During the novel the atmosphere grows increasingly sinister as the setting moves from a country house to a London suburb and a world of confinement, plotting, and murder.

Wilkie Collins is a master of mystery, and The Woman in White is his first excursion into the genre. When the hero, Walter Hartright, on a moonlit night in North London, encounters a solitary, terrified and beautiful woman dressed in white, he feels impelled to solve the mystery of her distress. The intricate plot is peopled with a finely characterised cast, from the peevish invalid Mr Fairlie to the corpulent villain Count Fosco and the enigmatic woman herself.

Wilkie Collins' classic story, The Woman in White, is one of the great mystery thrillers of the nineteenth century and beyond. It is a wonderful combination of rich characterisation and cunning melodrama which ensnares the reader from its opening pages. The novel features one of the strongest heroines of the Victorian Age, Marian Halcombe, who was a revelation for the readers of the time. Although not conventionally attractive, she is a tough, determined and feisty soul, well equipped to travel down the dark and dangerous pathway fate has decreed for her. Also featured is one of the great villains of all literature, the sly, smooth and corpulent Count Fosco, whose eccentric habits both chill and amuse. Since its publication, The Woman in White has never been out of print and has been the subject of numerous theatrical, film and television adaptations, including most recently a musical version by Andrew Lloyd Webber.

Wilkie Collin's intriguing story about a blind girl, Lucilla Finch, and the identical twins who both fall in love with her, has the exciting complications of his better known novels, but it also overturns conventional expectations. Using a background of myth and fairy-tale to expand the boundaries of nineteenth century realist fiction, Collins not only takes a blind person as his central character but also explores the idea of blindness and its implications. His sensitive presentation of the difficulties, disappointments, and occasional delights which follow the recovery of sight by someone blind since infancy is still one of the best accounts in fiction of a problem which continues to intrigue philosophers, psychologists, and the general public, as it has done since it was first discussed by Locke and Berkeley in the eighteenth century.

The Moonstone is an ancient Indian diamond which brings disaster and tragedy to everyone who owns it. Rachel Verinder's uncle gives the diamond to her as a birthday present, but the same night, it is stolen. Penguin Readers is a series of simplified novels, film novelizations and original titles that introduce students at all levels to the pleasures of reading in English. Originally designed for teaching English as a foreign language, the series' combination of high interest level and low reading age makes it suitable for both English-speaking teenagers with limited reading skills and students of English as a second language. Many titles in the series also provide access to the pre-20th century literature strands of the National Curriculum English Orders. Penguin Readers are graded at seven levels of difficulty, from Easystarts with a 200-word vocabulary, to Level 6 (Advanced) with a 3000-word vocabulary. In addition, titles fall into one of three sub-categories: Contemporary, Classics or Originals. At the end of each book there is a section of enjoyable exercises focusing on vocabulary building, comprehension, discussion and writing. Some titles in the series are available with an accompanying audio cassette, or in a book and cassette pack. Additionally, selected titles have free accompanying Penguin Readers Factsheets which provide stimulating exercise material for students, as well as suggestions for teachers on how to exploit the Readers in class.

The Moonstone, a priceless Indian diamond which had been brought to England as spoils of war, is given to Rachel Verrinder on her eighteenth birthday. That very night, the stone is stolen. Suspicion then falls on a hunchbacked housemaid, on Rachel's cousin Franklin Blake, on a troupe of mysterious Indian jugglers, and on Rachel herself. The phlegmatic Sergeant Cuff is called in, and with the help of Betteredge, the Robinson Crusoe-reading loquacious steward, the mystery of the missing stone is ingeniously solved.