The Moonstone The Moonstone's Influence on Later Detective Fiction

Wilkie Collins is often considered the father of the modern detective novel. Although he wrote under the genre of “sensation fiction” at his time, many scholars believe that Collins’s plot-focused, suspenseful, thrilling tales built the groundwork for detective fiction/crime fiction to come. The famous Sherlock Holmes series and character (1887) created by Scottish author and physician Sir Arthur Conan Doyle is said to have drawn influences from The Moonstone. Sherlock Holmes, a detective with almost fantastical abilities, is based off the real-life Jack Whicher, and Collins’s Sergeant Cuff (and Mr. Murthwaite). Although Edgar Allen Poe is sometimes a competitor for first mystery author, there is no denying that Collins left a “sensational” legacy in this genre of fiction.