ABSTRACT
Although 19th-century English fiction is replete with mystery and crime, as in the novels of Collins' older contemporary and friend Charles Dickens, critics often credit Wilkie Collins with the invention of the English detective novel. What sets The Moonstone apart from later detective fiction, however, is not the intricacy of its plot, brilliantly constructed as it is, but its sheer length. Of course, length was a staple requirement of the Victorian publishing marketplace, whether in novels published serially like The Moonstone or issued in the standard three-volume format. Constructing novels of such length also allowed Victorian writers ample room for the development of complex characters, as well as for the leisurely fleshing out of those characters' worlds, but these strategies told against tightness of plot-so much so that plot, per se, is of relatively minor importance in much of the period's fiction.
