The World's Great Novels: The Moonstone, Part One (EP4722)
The Great Detectives of Old Time Radio
Adam Graham
4.6 • 1.8K Ratings
🗓️ 5 June 2025
⏱️ 38 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Original Radio Broadcast Date: April 2, 1948
Originating from Chicago
Starring: Sherman Marks as Gabriel Betterridge; Charles Mountain as Franklin Blake; Geraldine Kaye as Rachel Verinder; Alma Fox; Jane Elliot; Ruth Shane; Sidney Breese; Arthur Peterson; Boris Aplon; Margaret Brayton
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | The Welcome to the great detectives of old time radio from Boise, Idaho. |
| 0:35.2 | This is your host, Adam Graham. |
| 0:41.3 | In a moment, we're going to introduce the first part of a four-part adaptation of the novel The Moonstone. But first, I do want to encourage you if you are |
| 0:49.2 | enjoying the podcast to follow us using your favorite podcast software. And if you've not already, I do want to encourage you to check out my e-books. |
| 0:57.9 | All I needed to know, I learned from Colombo, and all I needed to know, I learned from Dragnet. |
| 1:02.9 | Each examined the careers and histories of seven great fictional detectives and policemen, and life lessons that can be learned from them. |
| 1:12.3 | They are available as e-books, wherever fine e-books are sold, or through audible.com or the Apple store. So we'll talk |
| 1:20.3 | first about the Moonstone, and second about the series that adapted it. The Moonstone was written in 1868 by Wilkie Collins. |
| 1:33.4 | It was an epistleary novel told in a series of letters and journal entries by various characters. |
| 1:41.5 | The novel is really a landmark in the world of detective fiction. |
| 1:47.9 | It came after Edgar Allan Poe's famous short stories in the 1840s, |
| 1:54.0 | but it established many precedents as a long-form piece and received very high praise. Dorothy Sayers, famous for creating |
| 2:04.7 | Lord Peter Wimsy, praised it as probably the very finest detective story ever written. |
| 2:12.6 | G.K. Chesterton, who created Father Brown, calls it probably the best detective tale in the world. |
| 2:20.9 | Now, of course, because it was first, it's a little different than effective stories we might be used to. |
| 2:29.6 | But still, it's a landmark story, and it's going to be great to bring it to you again. |
| 2:34.8 | Now, I should mention that we did actually play a two-part adaptation that was produced in Hollywood for the radio series suspense. |
| 2:45.9 | I'm intrigued by this one, because I think it is very hard to condense a novel like the Moonstone and all that it has |
| 2:55.9 | going on in it, down to two episodes, and so this one is going to be four episodes long. Now, this |
| 3:06.4 | was part of the series The World's Great Novels. |
| 3:10.2 | This series originated in Chicago on station WMAQ and was syndicated on other NBC station. |
| 3:19.6 | The series was part of MBC's University of the Air, and MBC worked in cooperation with the University of Louisville, |
... |
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