高級英語教材第39課

先讀課文﹕
The Moonstone 月亮鑽石
by Wilkie Collins

Prologue﹕THE STORMING OF SERINGAPATAM (1799)
----Extracted from a Family Paper

I address these lines--written in India--to my relatives in England. My
object is to explain the motive which has induced me to refuse the right
hand of friendship to my cousin, John Herncastle. The reserve which I have
hitherto maintained in this matter has been misinterpreted
by members of my family whose good opinion I cannot consent to forfeit.
I request them to suspend their decision until they have read my narrative.
And I declare, on my word of honour, that what I am now about to write is,
strictly and literally, the truth. The private difference between my cousin
and me took its rise in a great public event in which we were both concerned-
-the storming of Seringapatam, under General Baird, on the 4th of May, 1799.
In order that the circumstances may be clearly understood, I must revert
for a moment to the period before the assault, and to the stories current
in our camp of the treasure in jewels and gold stored up in the Palace of
Seringapatam.
One of the wildest of these stories related to a Yellow Diamond--a famous
gem in the native annals of India. The earliest known traditions describe
the stone as having been set in the forehead of the four-handed Indian god
who typifies the Moon. Partly from its peculiar colour, partly from a superstition
which represented it as feeling the influence of the deity whom it adorned,
and growing and lessening in lustre with the waxing and waning of the moon,
it
first gained the name by which it continues to be known in India to this
day--the name of THE MOONSTONE. A similar superstition was once prevalent,
as I have heard, in ancient Greece and Rome; not applying, however (as in
India), to a diamond devoted to the service of a god, but to a semi-transparent
stone of the inferior order of gems, supposed to be affected by the lunar
influences--the moon, in this latter case also, giving the name by which
the stone is still known to collectors in our own time. The adventures of
the Yellow Diamond begin with the eleventh century of the Christian era.

1) 生詞自查。
作者介紹﹕William Wilkie Collins (8 January 1824 -- 23 September 1889) was
an English novelist, playwright, and author of short stories. He was very
popular during the Victorian era and wrote 30 novels, more than 60 short
stories, 14 plays, and over 100 non-fiction pieces. His best-known works
are The Woman in White, The Moonstone, Armadale and No Name.
Collins was a lifelong friend of Charles Dickens. A number of Collins's
works were first published in Dickens's journals All the Year Round and
Household Words. The two collaborated on several dramatic and fictional
works, and some of Collins's plays were performed by Dickens's acting company.

3) 本書介紹﹕The Moonstone (1868) by Wilkie Collins is a 19th-century British
epistolary novel, generally considered the first detective novel in the
English language. The story was originally serialized in Charles Dickens'
magazine All the Year Round. The Moonstone and The Woman in White are considered
Wilkie Collins' best novels.
4) 內容簡介﹕Rachel Verinder, a young Englishwoman, inherits a large Indian
diamond on her eighteenth birthday. It is a legacy from her uncle, a corrupt
British army officer who served in India. The diamond is of great religious
significance as well as being extremely valuable, and three Hindu priests
have dedicated their lives to recovering it. Rachel's eighteenth birthday
is celebrated with a large party, whose guests include her cousin Franklin
Blake. She wears the Moonstone on her dress that evening for all to see,
including some Indian jugglers who have called at the house. Later that
night, the diamond is stolen from Rachel's bedroom, and a period of turmoil,
unhappiness, misunderstandings and ill-luck ensues. The complex plot traces
the subsequent efforts to explain the theft, identify the thief, trace the
stone and recover it.
5) “月亮鑽石”也是一本世界名著﹐被認為是英文寫作中第一本偵探小說。中國讀
者對這本書的名稱一定不陌生。可以讀一下原文了。