But in the eighteenth century there was an emperor who committed sacrilege in many temples of the worship of Brahman. At his command, havoc and rapine were let loose, and the Moonstone was stolen. Time rolled on from one year to another, and the precious stone was passing through the hands of different people. And as the novel says, once upon a time the gem reached Miss Rachel Verinder, one of the main characters of the story.
The author says that the fantastic Indian legend laid a spell on him and had a very strong influence on the novel itself. The influence of the superstition that the marvelous gem brings its vengeance on the person, who possesses it, has a clear reflection in the story. It brings a shade of fatality and intricacy to the novel.
With the help of the legend Collins created the atmosphere of the story, which was very strained and mysterious. On top of that, the Moonstone is supposed to be one of the main characters of the story, though it wasn’t a living being. It affected all the characters of the novel and often caused many strange events, sometimes even inexplicable. The Yellow Diamond was the main thing that involved people into troubles, made them worry, destroyed their relations with one another and sometimes led to horrible consequences such as self-denial and self-degradation. So in general, the Moonstone really brought misfortune to the people in whose possession it was. It was like an obstacle in their ways, through which the author revealed their natures and minds.
After the mysterious legend of the Moonstone, the first main character of the novel Gabriel Betteredge begins narrating the story itself. Betteredge was a house-steward in the service of Julia Verinder – the mistress of the house. He was a widower and had a daughter named Penelope. He was in his early fifties and looked his age. His views on marriage were rather eccentric. Gabriel thought that he and his wife used to be a happy couple. But they constantly seemed to get on the nerves of each other. He says that when he wanted to go upstairs, he always met his wife coming down; or when his wife wanted to go down, there was he coming up. So after five years of the misunderstanding, he was pleased to be revealed of his wife. Since then he never married and enjoyed his life. Betteredge was fond of his daughter. When she grew up, he began to listen to her advice, because she seemed to be wise, broad-minded and trustworthy.
As to his work, Gabriel was very devoted to it. He was an indispensable man in Lady Verinder’s service. He always knew a bit of everything. He was very reliable and even-tempered.
At the same time Betteredge was a person of philosophic nature. He often brooded over different things in solitude. His favourite book was “Robinson Crusoe,” which he liked reading very often, especially when something disturbed his mind. Whenever he opened the book, there was some witty dictum that helped him to solve his problems and made him think a lot of things over.
Though Betteredge wasn’t highly educated, he behaved in a very intelligent way. Sometimes he seemed to be much cleverer than the others. Judging by his attitude to life Gabriel was an optimist; he never gave way to despair, although it was very difficult to remain strong at times. He was the only character who could preserve his kindness and the strength of spirit through the years of hard struggles and severe trials. He was responsible and tactful. He did his best to help his friends and not to let them down.
Betteredge was very shrewd and saw all people through. In his descriptions of different people he showed the ability of feeling things much stronger than the others could do it. Of course, sometimes he exaggerated, but these were his points of view and his own understanding of the reality.
The personality of Gabriel Betteredge is of great importance in the novel. First of all, with the help of the character the author expressed some of his opinions. And to add to this, Collins reflected the reality on the part of one of his characters, through his ideology (Betteredge’s ideology). Though there are various characters who expressed their points of view and showed the reality in different ways, Betteredge’s understanding of life remains one of the most significant and explains the reasons for many things that happen in the story.
As to the philosophy of “Robinson Crusoe,” it’s a very important part of the story. It helps to create the atmosphere of the novel and to describe the world from different points of view. On top of that, the philosophical extracts form the background of the story, make the style of the novel vivid and sophisticated, and bring eccentricity to it.
Mr. Franklin Blake was the next main character of the novel. Gabriel Betteredge had known him since he was in petticoats. They were very close friends. Mr. Blake came from a rich family and was a nephew of Lady Verinder. In Franklin’s boyhood his father sent him to some institutions in Germany, which were considered to be the best establishments in Europe of those days. Then Mr. Blake travelled a lot around the world. And each country he had visited laid its influence on him. As he grew and gained his education in such countries as Germany, France and Italy, he imbibed their culture. “As a consequence of these foreign influences, he came back to England with so many different sides of character, all more or less jarring with each other.” Gabriel Betteredge thought that the French, German and Italian sides of Franklin’s character were uppermost, and the original English foundation sometimes showed through. Mr. Blake always was in a state of contradiction with himself. He could be a busy man, and a lazy man; cloudy in the head and clear-minded; composed and hot-tempered; sometimes optimistic and sometimes pessimistic; strong and helpless. But he was always shrewd, brainy and sensible. As a person of high culture he was polite, tolerant and responsible.
Mr. Franklin decided to return to England on the occasion of Miss Rachel’s eighteenth birthday, the daughter of Lady Verinder and his cousin. He himself was twenty-five years old, very good-looking and well-bred. Since the family saw him last time, he had changed a lot. Now he had a pale complexion, a curly brown beard and a moustache. He was neat, slim, tall and well-made. The only thing that preserved the same was the bright, straightforward look in his eyes.
The arrival of Mr. Franklin Blake brought a lot of things to the Verinders’ life. These were joy, smiles, love, but at the same time tears, troubles and sadness.
Franklin Blake takes a very important part in the novel. First of all, he was one of the main characters who entangled and then unraveled the story of the Diamond. Besides, it was he who influenced many people in different ways, made the lives of some of them miserable and unbearable (as to Rosanna Spearman), brought light and happiness to others (as to Ezra Jennings), changed a lot of things and affected circumstances. And on top of that, Franklin Blake was the main character, with the help of whom the author put his experiment of tracing the influence of character on the state of things.
As to Miss Rachel Verinder, she was very beautiful and young. At the age of eighteen she tried to be independent and bossy.
She was small and slim, all in fine proportions from top to toe. Her hair “was as black as night.” And her eyes matched her hair. She had a complexion “as warm as the Sun” itself. Her lips and chin “were the morsels for the gods.” So if to judge by her appearance, she was a very charming creature. But if we look at her inner world, we’ll see that Rachel was absolutely different.
To begin with, Rachel was unlike most other girls of her age. She always had ideas of her own, and was stiff-necked. She judged for herself, never asked anybody’s advice, never told anybody beforehand what she was going to do and never came with her secrets to her mother. “In little and great things Rachel always went on a way of her own.” Besides, many people said of her, “Rachel’s best friend and Rachel’s worst enemy are, one and the other – Rachel herself.”
There was a certain contradiction between her charming appearance and her devilish character. She never cared a straw for people’s feelings, even if she hurt somebody. As Rachel knew almost nothing about life, she didn’t know what real love was, what patience meant, and made thoughtless conclusions very often.
Though Miss Rachel was of good blood, she behaved like an ill-bred, hot-tempered and unbalanced child. She wasn’t even conscious of those sufferings that she caused her mother. Just she enjoyed her life. Rachel was often ignorant and cruel to the people who loved and almost worshipped her (Lady Verinder, Mr. Franklin Blake etc.). In her opinion all people should have served her and the whole world should have been only for her. What a monstrous soul with a heart of stone! In the character of Rachel Verinder we see the external beauty and the ugliness of the inner world.
Collins was a master of creating various characters. He seemed to know the human soul inside out. Putting his characters in different situations, he revealed their emotions, thoughts, and attitudes to one another and to the world in general. He reflected the most typical traits of human character, showed that all of us have different natures, unpredictable and unique. Sometimes people commit the things that seem to be rather strange and unexplainable to others. But nobody can know or feel what’s happening in somebody’s heart. At times it’s almost impossible to express all the depth of some emotion that you feel inside.
This idea was craftily reflected in the novel through Rosanna Spearman. No one had ever known or could only imagine what sufferings she bore in her heart.
Rosanna was a new servant in the house of Lady Verinder. In her past she used to be a thief, but the law laid hold of her and she was put in prison. Then she lived in the reformatory for some period of time. As Lady Verinder was a religious person, once she intended to save some forlorn women from drifting back into bad ways. In the reformatory she met Rosanna and decided to give her a chance.
There is no immediate indication of Rosanna’s age, but we can guess that she was about twenty-five years old. Although she was young, she seemed to know much more about life than the others. There was no beauty about her to make the others envious; she was the plainest woman in the house, with the additional misfortune of having one shoulder bigger than the other. None of the servants knew anything about her background and nobody could cast her past life in her teeth. But Rosanna failed to make friends among other women servants, excepting Penelope, who was always kind to Rosanna, though never intimate with her.
Rosanna went about her work modestly and uncomplainingly, doing it carefully and well. She was rather different from all the women servants in the house. They loathed Rosanna for her silent tongue and her solitary ways. When she read or worked in her leisure hours, the rest gossiped. She never quarreled, never took offence, but kept a certain distance between the others and herself. None of the servants, except Gabriel Betterdge, wanted to know the true reason for her shyness and being so self-contained and strange. The rest didn’t pay any attention to her, or spread rumours about her, or made unfair judgements concerning her in the most filthy and foolish manner. And after the Diamond had disappeared, most people began to treat Rosanna even worse, suspecting her in all the troubles that were happening around.
People often judge one another making thoughtless conclusions. But they can’t feel the sufferings of some person, they are not conscious of the reasons for the person’s strangeness. They just mock at him or her not seeing their own shallowness and brutality. They loose all their spiritual values transforming into degenerates.
The reality was rather severe to Rosanna. The only person who tried to help her was Gabriel Betteredge. It was he who tried to cheer her up, to bring some light to her life and make her a bit happier. But in spite of all his efforts Rosanna didn’t change and remained reserved and depressed in her spirits.
There was one thing in the whole world that fascinated Rosanna, made her forget about all the troubles but brood over much more serious things such as the aim of life and death. That was the Shivering Sand. Something drew Rosanna to it and didn’t want to let her go. She dreamt of the place days and nights thinking that it had laid a spell on her. At times it also seemed to Rosanna that the grave was waiting for her at the Shivering Sand. And it was really so. Finally, she committed suicide there. That place was wonderful and horrible at once.
There was “a certain magic” about the quicksand. Sometimes the place looked as if “it had hundreds of suffocating people under it – all struggling to get to the surface, and sinking lower and lower in the dreadful deeps!” The place was never the same; it was always new and unpredictable.
The description of the Shivering Sand is of great importance. The author put too much sense into it.
First of all, as all descriptions of nature, that of the quicksand was used by Collins to create the atmosphere of the story, to reflect the feelings of some characters of the novel. All Collins’s landscapes are fascinating, full of emotions, vivid and picturesque. Also every description of nature forms the background of some scenes, helps to reveal somebody’s feelings, thoughts and even soul. The author coloured his landscapes with sophisticated metaphors and similes. There he put subtle hints of the further development of the events of the novel. For example, if we compare two different descriptions of nature, we’ll see different feelings and different atmosphere.
“When the hide flows over the quicksand, the sea seems to leave the waves behind it on the bank, and rolls its waters in smoothly with a heave, and covers the sand in silence. A lonesome and horrid retreat... It looks as if it had hundreds of suffocating people under it...” What a sombre picture! It’s filled with loneliness and melancholy. At the same time the atmosphere is strained. There are hundreds of sufferings in it that are beyond any expression.
But in the next landscape absolutely different emotions are reflected: “The sunlight poured its unclouded beauty on every object I could see. The exquisite freshness of the air made the mere act of living and breathing a luxury. Even the lonely little bay welcomed the morning with a show of cheerfulness...” This description fascinates by its vividness, unspotted beauty and impressionable picturesqueness. It’s bright and lovely in its spirit. There nature is like a connection between the disharmonious and intricate life of a human being and the perfect and unspotted ideal, which can exist only in one’s dreams.
At the same time some of the landscapes have symbolic meanings. The author expressed his philosophical ideas, views on life in them.
Collins thought that it’s impossible to turn such things as time and life back, impossible to return the feelings of the past days. Just lost is never found again. We can see the thought in the following lines: “Throw a stone in the quicksand and you will never find it, the sand will suck it down forever.”
On top of that, the Shivering Sand was as bottomless and lonesome as the soul of Rosanna Spearman. Nobody had ever known what was in the bottomless deep of her soul. Nobody could ever imagine how strong and passionate her love for Mr. Franklin was. Though Rosanna was too sensitive and unbalanced, she was the strongest of all for her ability of bearing everything inside without letting anybody know about the tortures of being always misunderstood and not having anybody to share her problems with.
In the personality of Rosanna Spearman the author combined two different sides – the flatness of her appearance and the greatness of her spirit.
In that novel Collins described a large number of characters showing people’s feelings, a great variety of the ways of expressing one’s individuality, different ways of affecting the circumstances. He also put a lot of philosophy into this work of literature. His philosophic ideas and views on life are subtly combined with the plot of the novel. The author’s ideology is reflected in different ways: through his characters, in the descriptions of nature and in some of the extracts from “Robinson Crusoe.” Also his philosophy is expressed in the lyrical digressions and discourses on various subjects, through the intricacy of the plot itself, with the help of metaphors and the picturesqueness and cadence of his sentences. With the help of all these things Collins told the whole biography of the human spirit.
It is possible to point out a few main themes of the author’s philosophical digressions. Most of them concern the aim of life, the spiritual values of the whole mankind, relations among people, different feelings that can exist in the human heart, some religious points and so on. The philosophic part of the novel is very important, because it helps to understand some matters and to reveal the author’s ideas more completely. Besides, it expresses Collins’s individuality and his own attitude to the world. And on top of that, his philosophy forms the emotional background of the story and makes it sophisticated.
As to the dicta from “Robinson Crusoe,” the author didn’t use them very often, but only at times. First of all, they help to reveal the character of Gabriel Betteredge and show his attitude to life. Also they are put into the novel in order to create a certain atmosphere. In some of them Collins craftily predicted the further development of the events of the story.
The first chapter of the novel begins with one of the extracts from “Robinson Crusoe.” It says, “Now I saw, though too late, the Folly of the beginning a Work before we count the Cost, and before we judge rightly of our own Strength to go through it.” It’s inseparably connected with the story itself. Most of the characters often started doing something without thinking it over. And as a result, there were very strange consequences and the heroes lost their heads not knowing how to solve their problems.
As to Gabriel Betteredge, the philosophy of “Robinson Crusoe” helped him to get through many troubles, gave reasonable answers to his questions, and was a guide through his life and a consolation in some way.
Most of Collins’s philosophical discourses concern the spiritual values of the humanity and people’s attitudes to their lives.
In one of them he says, “Gentlefolks’ lives passed in looking for something to do... their tastes are of what is called the intellectual sort. Nine times out of ten they take to torturing something, or to spoiling something – and they firmly believe they are improving their minds, when the plain truth is, they are only making a mess in the house.” How often people waste their time on absurd things, trying to enjoy themselves and to be of any use to the society! There Collins says that many people waste their lives on very strange things thinking that they are changing the world for the better. But in fact, they only spoil everything around and make a mountain out of a molehill. Just in the opinion of lots of us “our heads have got something they must think of, and hands something that, they must do,” and it doesn’t matter what.
The author thought that a large number of people didn’t have any particular aims in their lives, so they didn’t understand what the spiritual values could be. The only reality they knew was the material world, the things that they could touch and see. They paid too much attention to the aesthetic side of their lives, but didn’t care a dime for the ethical part or for their inward world. They didn’t even trouble about the disharmony that existed between the outer and inner sides of their lives. The people were like puppets, whose heads were full of trumpery, and who were governed by their fits of anger, pangs of jealousy, or sudden and groundless pangs of remorse and so on and so forth.
First of all, it concerns Miss Rachel Verinder whose emotions dominated her and whose conduct was often inexplicable.
As to the aim of life, in the author’s opinion “human life is a sort of target – misfortune is always firing at it, and always hitting the mark.” According to “The Moonstone” it is really so, because all the characters had to go through lots of trials, and it wasn’t easy: they lost some dear people and even had to risk their lives.
Collins often brooded over the great variety of the ways of living in the world. Different people, different minds... All of us are unique, but have something in common. In the author’s opinion life is a sort of trial, where Misfortune, Danger, Fear and the Burden of Anxiety put their obstacles in our ways. He says, “Necessity, which spares our betters, has no pity on us, and things do turn up so vexatiously in this life, and will in a manner insist on being noticed.”
Collins put his characters in various situations showing the changes of their minds and the mental strives among different feelings. Also he showed how the heroes affected the events and how the circumstances laid their influence on the characters themselves. And under various situations the heroes of the novel showed their worth in different ways. Some of them could preserve their spirituality in spite of all the trials they had to pass through. But the others lost themselves under the inexorable course of time and the burden of anxiety. Often they had to deny themselves for somebody’s sake and put their own feelings aside. First of all, it concerns lady Verinder, who devoted her life to Rachel, the ungrateful daughter. Also it concerns Ezra Jennings, who never knew what happiness meant and what the taste of joy was. But like the characters of the story “we learnt to put our feelings back into ourselves, and to jog on with our duties as patiently as may be.” We adjust to the world and the world adjusts to us at the same time. But when a person adapts to different situations restraining and concealing his emotions, nobody knows what he feels and what things can fill his heart, because a real feeling is beyond any expression. In Collins’s opinion, we can only guess what is happening in somebody’s heart, but it’s impossible to feel all the depth of it.
Collins tried to describe different feelings in several ways: through the picturesqueness and emotionality of his landscapes, through his lyrical digressions and with the help of symbols and metaphors.
Also the author was interested how people treated the world, how the reality was reflected in their minds. All of us understand the reality in different ways according to our points of view, mentality, abilities etc. But in the author’s opinion, the emotional side of each person governs the world. People can feel the reality with the help of their eyes, ears etc. And according to their feelings people treat the world differently. So emotionality is the uppermost side of our lives.
For example, “when somebody has a presentiment about some danger, he begins to be afraid of it. It is called Fear. But Fear of Danger is ten thousand times more terrifying than Danger itself, when apparent to the Eyes, and we find the Burden of Anxiety greater, by much, than the Evil which we are anxious about.” According to this statement it is possible to say that the world of emotions is much richer than the material reality, which is reflected in our hearts.
As to the religious point of the novel, Miss Clack is the main character who expresses such a kind of ideas. She doesn’t take an important part in the story, but is the narrator of several chapters. She was a niece of Sir John Verinder, a member of the Mothers’-Small-Clothes-conversion Society. She devoted her life to charity. She didn’t care about anything except it. She denied the existence of the emotional side of life thinking that all people should have read religious books and should have cared only about the spiritual virtues.
In her opinion “times were hard, and the flesh was weak.” It was the explanation that she gave for all the sins and errors that she and other people had committed it their lives.
Though Miss Clack gave her whole self to charity, read a lot of religious books and tried to spread them around, she didn’t know what the real spiritual values were. She was so narrow-minded and down-to-earth that she didn’t see any sense in love, she couldn’t understand the troubles of the others thinking that charity was the only thing worth doing. Just charity was the only reality she knew and lived in. Seeing how Lady Verinder worried about her daughter and that her health was beginning to weaken, Miss Clack kept on spreading her books around the house and insisted on Lady Verinder’s reading them. She never cared about anybody’s feelings and didn’t want to accept or understand the existence of emotions, the great variety of opinions and kinds of ideology. So Collins said, “Miss Clack was the false start of the philosophical side of the story of the Moonstone.”
In fact, the author expressed his main philosophical conceptions though another character. It was Ezra Jennings. In his personality Collins combined various traits: the ugliness of his appearance and the beauty of his inner world; the sublimity and great power of his soul, his thorough knowledge of life and the ability of denying himself at the sake for somebody’s life, the religious point of the novel and the most complete understanding of the reality and the human heart. Through the character the author expressed his points of view, showed how sophisticated, immeasurable and intricate the inward world of a human being can be.
Also the personality of Ezra Jennings is of great importance, because he has an evident connection with the author himself. In the descriptions of Ezra’s sufferings from pain, Collins heavily reflected those of his own. If we recall that he was plagued by gout and addicted to the drug increasing amounts of it, then we will see the pure reflection of these things in the character of Ezra Jennings.
“At one time, I was whirling through empty space with the phantoms of the dead, friends and enemies together. At another, the one beloved face which I shall never see again, rose at my bedside, hideously phosphorescent in the black darkness, and glared and grinned at me.”
Ezra was an assistant of Mr. Candy, the best doctor in Frizinghall and London. Ezra didn’t have a happy and bright childhood. When he was born, his destiny had a great number of troubles in store for him. He was brought up partly in England, partly in some colonies. His own family treated Ezra mercilessly. The recollections of his family were full of pain and hatred. At the outset of Ezra’s career something horrible happened to him that he declined to speak about. Then he parted with the woman he loved and could never forget her. Changing the places of work Ezra had a bad reputation because of some vile slander, which ruined his life. None of his employers had any complaints to him, but didn’t want to deal with him having heard about the slander. In general, his life was full of sufferings, undeserved reproaches and uncertainty. Ezra had no happy time in his life to look back at, no peace of mind. He was the most lonesome character of the story.
To add to this, Ezra suffered from incurable internal complaint. His nervous system was shattered; and his nights were nights of horror (like the nights of the author himself). In the character Collins reflected all the horror and the depth of his pain, physical and mental, all his spiritual wounds.
Ezra met Mr. Candy by chance. And it was a turning point in his life. After several months of working with Mr. Candy, a new misfortune came to Ezra’s life. His employer and a deer friend, Mr. Candy was struck by an incurable illness. The cause for it was that Mr. Candy had been driving home after Rachel’s birthday party in heavy rain and had got wet through. Having found some urgent messages from his patients, he had to visit those people in spite of the cloudburst. And when Ezra turned to him the next morning, Mr. Candy was down with a fever. His memory of the events of the past was hopelessly enfeebled. Ezra Jennings was the only person who took care of him and did his best to save the doctor’s life. There were moments when he felt all the misery of his friendlessness, all the peril of his dreadful responsibility. But Ezra kept on looking after Mr. Candy, because he felt that he was his debtor for life. He could have risked anything rather than let the one man on the earth who had befriended him, die before his eyes.
As to the appearance of Ezra Jennings, his looks spoke against him. Judging by his figure and his movements, he was young. But judging by his face, he was twice older than Betteredge. His face was all the woe of the humankind. “His complexion was of a gispy darkness, his fleshless cheeks had fallen into deep hollows... His wrinkles were innumerable.” His eyes, dreamy and mournful, lost their natural colour and looked like “two deep mysteriousness.” Each person, who had met him for the first time, stared at him with a rude curiosity. Ezra produced an unfavourable impression of him on a stranger’s mind by the extraordinary contradiction between his being old and young at once.
But it was Ezra who was destined to be the incarnation of the author’s philosophy. Through the personality of Ezra Jennings Collins expressed his own understanding of happiness and the aim of life.
The author thought that it was possible to understand what happiness really meant only through sufferings. If a person could deny himself at somebody’s sake, bring light into their lives and make them a bit happier, then he really knew what the life was for.
A true happiness came to Ezra’s life like a wonderful gleam that made him appreciate every moment of it. Realizing that he had saved the love of Franklin Blake and Miss Rachel, had puzzled out the matter of the Moonstone and had made the lives of a few people bright, Ezra became really happy. “Oh me, how I feel it, as the grateful happiness looked at me out of her eyes, and the warm pressure of her hand said, “This is your doing!”... God be praised for His mercy! I have seen a little sunshine – I have had a happy time.”
As to the aim of life, Collins thought that we should “bring light to one another” and always remain “people” (in the full sense of this word) in spite of all the obstacles, troubles and anxieties that our Fates have in store for us. And, in the author’s opinion, “the Sun will throw its shining for everybody some day.”
Collins gave the name Ezra to one of the characters of the story with a certain purpose. It is believed that some centuries ago there was a prophet called Ezra. His life was full of tortures; he suffered persecutions, but always helped different people. So our character is supposed to be the reflection of the religious point of the novel. And if to sum up all that was said about Ezra Jennings, the author expressed his ideology with the help of him and reflected all the intricacy of the human inward life.
The book was written in a certain style. So as I’m going to describe it, I should start with the language of the novel.
Collins is considered to be a great master of describing different things, so his language is very rich and his sentences are rather long. The style, in which he describes nature, is vivid and obscure at once, full of metaphors as monstrous as orchids, and as subtle in colour. The mere cadence of the sentences, the monotony of their music make the language almost poetic. The jewelled style makes the story sophisticated and intricate. It reveals the author’s philosophy more completely.
“Every language is a temple in which the soul of those who speak it is enshrined.” The language of the novel reflects the author’s inward life and his individuality. With the help of the language Collins expressed all his points of view and let the reader understand the spirit of his days. The author put his own soul into the story; and we can feel it through his craftily-made sentences. His style is so realistic that fascinates by its picturesqueness.
Language is a part of art. And “...art, like one’s life, - is complicated and verbose; always has a grain of contradiction, and, like the human’s heart, is constantly looking for something new and magnificent.”
So all that was said proves that “The Moonstone” is a great piece of art. This work of Collins is considered to be the first and one of the best detective novels in English literature. So “The Moonstone” is a real masterpiece and an important contribution to the world’s literature.
