Picture Copyright: Sew Many Books
The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins (1868)
What is it about?
In 1799, the disreputable John Herncastle loots “the moonstone” from a sacred temple during the storming of Seringapatam – and lives in fear for the rest of his life. His niece, Rachel Verinder, inherits the stone on her eighteenth birthday, but it is stolen that very night. An investigation begins, the famous Sergeant Cuff is put on the case – but Rachel herself is strangely uninterested and uncooperative. A succession of characters take on the role of narrator to explain what happens, giving multiple perspectives on the people involved and what their possible motives might be.
What did I think about it?
I confess to not being a huge fan of detective fiction in general, but this held my interest, despite a fairly relentless focus on the single plot-line for such a long book. It is interesting to see so many of the now familiar tropes of this sort of novel when they were new. Sergeant Cuff, a Sherlock Holmes type character written before Sherlock Holmes came into being, is particularly interesting. The use of the multiple perspectives also feels very fresh. Most of the narrators are good company although the comically pious Miss Clack becomes a bit wearing. Wilkie Collins' presentation of issues relating to colonial exploitation and his depiction of characters from diverse backgrounds wouldn’t necessarily pass muster today, but there is still a great deal here that is ahead of its time.
Is there any needlework in it?
There is a clear division between the needlework of working and middle class women. We see the maid, Rosanna, doing practical stitching, such as making her own nightgown and she and her friend Lucy plan on moving to London to live by their sewing. Middle-class women sometimes do practical work for charity; Miss Clack is involved in the “Mother’s-Small-Clothes-Conversion-Society”, where the women take men’s trousers from the pawnbrokers and adapt them for young boys. Otherwise, they pursue embroidery as a recreation; Mrs Merridew uses it to relax when she is nervous, for example, when travelling by train.
Inspiration for textile art
The obvious starting point is the moonstone itself – which is not ‘a semi-transparent stone of the inferior order of gems” but a yellow diamond. It was placed in the forehead of a ‘moon-god’ which was ‘in a hall inlaid with precious stones, under a roof supported by pillars of gold’. There are striking descriptions of the stone throughout the book. For example, it is 'as large, or nearly, as a plover’s egg! The light that streamed from it was like the light of the harvest moon. When you looked down into the stone, you looked into a yellow deep that drew your eyes into it so that they saw nothing else.' There are other rich and exotic objects described in the book, such as the door decorated by Rachel and her cousin Franklin: ‘The griffins, cupids, and so on, were, I must own, most beautiful to behold; though so many in number, so entangled in flowers and devices, and so topsy-turvey in their actions and attitudes, that you felt them unpleasantly in your head for hours. There is also a box wrapped in cloth of gold ‘most beautifully inlaid in jewels, on an ebony ground'. Opium and laudanum play a role in the plot, so these might also provide inspiration.
Rachel herself is another possible subject. In the most striking description, she is presented as ‘very nicely dressed in some soft yellow stuff, that set off her dark complexion, and clipped her tight (in the form of a jacket) round the waist. She had a smart little straw hat on her head, with a white veil twisted round it. She had primrose-coloured gloves that fitted her hands like a second skin. Her beautiful black hair looked as smooth as satin under her hat. Her little ears were like rosy shells – they had a pearl dangling from each of them.’
The most significant landscape in the book area near the Yorkshire house where the Veriners live: one of the ‘loneliest and ugliest little bays on all our coast’ . It is reached by a ‘horrid walk…. through a melancholy plantation of firs’. ‘Perhaps the most unpleasant description is of “patches of nasty ooze’ which float ‘yellow-white, on the dead surface of the water’ while ‘the broad brown face of the quicksand’ begins to ‘dimple and quiver’. Another possible landscape is the garden, where the ‘white roses and blush roses’ delight and fascinate Sergeant Cuff.
You may be inspired to investigate Indian embroidery to reflect the moonstone’s origins. The site www.memeraki.com/blogs/news/embroidery-map-of-india lists forms which are associated with the area in which it was found: kasuti, sandur lambani, bangara and Kaudi. I would recommend ‘Sarah's hand embroidery tutorial ’ site for information about the katsuti technique: https://www.embroidery.rocksea.org/hand-embroidery/kasuti/kasuti-lesson-1/,
My design is an image of the moonstone itself, with different faces separated. The counted thread work at the side is inspired by katsuti embroidery.
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