Essay: How have mystery novels evolved after Wilkie Collins wrote The Moonstone?

Wilkie Collins, an English writer in the 19th century, trailblazed mystery novels and the whole of the detective genre with his work of fiction “The Moonstone”. Since then, some of the bestselling and most influential names in literature have written mystery novels. Many authors have strayed from how he wrote his novels, with others sticking tightly to his formula. From Agatha Christie to Edgar Allen Poe, they have looked into the face of it’s greatness and attempted to rival it.
The Moonstone is a Narrative following the story of Gabriel Betteredge, his acquaintance Franklin and Franklin’s aunt, a wealthy woman in her own right, and a legendary diamond. From the story, we come to see how Gabriel sees the world. From his love of Robinson Crusoe, to how forgiving yet stern he is. Gabriel Betteredge embodies what any wealthy person would want in an employee. Having been charged with documenting the loss of this mystical diamond, being lost 12 hours after being delivered upon the grounds. Betteredge documents the story from people and what they say, his own experience, and the diary of his daughter. Amongst the 500-odd pages in my copy, the Moonstone covers multiple narratives and leads to many discoveries, amongst them being that Franklin stole the moonstone (under the effects of opium) and that Rosanna has killed herself in a fit of neglect and love. From the seemingly random switches from first person to a narrative, but doing so seamlessly and without jarring the reader from the created reality.
Edgar Allen Poe, a writer whom I admire for works such as “The Raven”, wrote “The Murders of Rue Morgue” around the similar time of Wilkie Collins, and follows a much different style as Wilkie Collins’. For a start, the perspective is still first person, yet the narrator is not the one who finds out the mystery. Mr Dupin and his sidekick are two intellectuals who reside in seclusion in Paris, “Had the routine of our life been known to the public, we should have been known as madmen-although, perhaps, as madmen of a harmless nature. Our seclusion was perfect.” Leaving themselves to thoughts and pondering day by day, Dupin and his sidekick are led to the lack of formalities of their normal life. The story tells of two murders commited for seemingly no reason; the police are dumbfounded and, as Dupin puts it, they magnify everything in too close without seeing the big picture. Dupin eventually follows a large train of logic.
Authors such as Sir Arthur Conan Doyle have many parallels. There is the Sherlock Holmes to the Auguste Dupin. There is the Watson to Dupin’s sidekick. Sherlock Holmes and his effortless genius and Dupin share very similar qualities, the major one being that Sherlock is a very outgoing character whereas Dupin is very much a hermit. Dupin is portrayed in the beginning of the story as a man who is lost in his own thoughts, having been capable of tracking down his intellectually inferior sidekick’s thinking, but yet very much attentive and uses his intellect as a form of escapism due to him running away from his family “This young gentleman was of an excellent – indeed of an illustrious family…”.
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, the author of the influential and widely liked character of Sherlock Holmes and Watson, has sold many books and has a BBC series (Sherlock) made and modeled after his works and creative genius. I’m not very keen on his works, finding his books rather dry and too wordy; the setting doesn’t sit well with me, nor do I get enthralled at the regailing through Watson’s eyes of his hero Sherlock Holmes. Whether it’s The Hound of The Baskervilles or some of his shorter stories, Sherlock Holmes is how I would not characterize and how I would not write a detective novel. Sherlock Holmes attempts to put himself into the role of Auguste Dupin, yet is foiled by Dupin’s total charm and charisma, which I believe he is lacking in.
Agatha Christie is the most successful author but for Shakespeare himself and the Bible. Having sold over two billion books, she writes her novels all to a very similar formula-much like Poe does. Agatha Christie takes all which was left to her by Poe, Collins, and Conan Doyle and turns each into a masterpiece. One of my favorite Agatha Christie novels, “Death Comes as the End”, has the perfect amount of suspense, and a clear knowledge of the time whilst being written some 4,000 years prior. Agatha Christie writes in the first person, yet manages to fit in the spoken lines as mentiones before inside of “The Moonstone” without seeming jerky; exchanging large blocks of narrative into text and rationable thinking. Agatha Christie does what these who do, yet better that either. Agatha Christie has the perfect formula and ratio for her novels to shine; she took the reigns of Poe, Collins, and Conan Doyle to the next generation and beyond that.
In conclusion, these three authors all have different styles, yet all culminating into one author who shined and transformed what the detective novel genre means. While Wilkie Collins introduced the format which was led on with Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Agatha Christie revolutionized what it meant to be a detective novel writer. In a sense, while there were pioneers before her, they had only the roughest of outlines compared to her total fame and knowledge; she shined where they built up her potential.
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