In 1987, Michael McKeon theorized that the novel form developed alongside the rise of the individual in English society. This correlation implies that the novel marked the transition from a communal experience of literature to a solitary experience of the text: the writer writes alone and the reader reads alone. In his detective novel The Moonstone, Wilkie Collins pushes against this paradigm by emphasizing the benefits of writing and reading together, as opposed to the dangers of leaving subjective interpretation unchecked. Indeed, the novel itself is an amalgamation of different stories; the storytelling method is community-based. However, within the text, Collins's narrators also draw on other texts to distract, reinforce, displace, or clarify their own stories. Collins' insertion of various texts throughout the novel - novels, songs, letters, wills, pamphlets, receipts, newspaper articles and footnotes - implies a certain anxiety and rebellion against the idea that the novel is a solitary form, intended to be written. and read by an individual. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get an Original Essay Of course, writing a novel without engaging or referencing other texts would be almost impossible. Collins, however, noticeably takes advantage of every opportunity to use text as a method of conveying information. For example, rather than recognizing his own nightgown by sight or experience, Franklin Blake reads his "OWN NAME" on the garment, describing "the familiar letters which told me the nightgown was mine" ( 362). Letters and correspondence of all kinds fill the pages of The Moonstone, replacing potential dialogue. Examples include Rachel's destroyed letter to Franklin Blake, informing him of her knowledge of his guilt and Rosanna's admission to Franklin Blake that she was keeping his secret. Furthermore, Collins introduces a competition between text and conversation in the scene in which Godfrey Abelwhite describes his attack on Northumberland Street. Rachel insists that he “tell…the whole story of Northumberland Street directly” because she “knows that the newspapers left out some of it” (244). Godfrey Abelwhite responds: “'Dear Rachel…the newspapers told you everything – and they told it much better than I did'” (245). In this scene, Godfrey places value on texts, even those of a public nature, as a superior means of mediating and communicating experience. Of course, the ending – in which Godfrey is revealed to be the thief – complicates this paradigm of valuing texts over direct communication. This troubled preferential treatment of the text might express a concern about whether or not the solitary form of the novel is sufficient to tell a complete story; However, equally valid is the idea that intertextuality injects flexibility into the novel and offers a new possibility for both novel and community form. Indeed, the first page of The Moonstone favors the external text of Robinson Crusoe over the text of the story itself. Gabriel Betteredge introduces himself and his story through the mediation of other texts, citing “the first part of Robinson Crusoe, on page one hundred and twenty-nine” (21). However, like the scene in which Godfrey describes his story of Northumberland Street, Betteredge's invocation of Robinson Crusoe is a complex intertextual movement. Formally, Gabriel's quote supports the novel as potentially communal, by immediately inviting another author into the narrative. In terms of content, however, Robinson Crusoe is the solitary novel byexcellence, literally stranding a man on an island to create a narrative. Additionally, Robinson Crusoe is often considered the first novel, making Collins' decision to invoke the text even more symbolic. In the rest of Gabriel's story, he uses Robinson Crusoe for different effects. In some scenes, Gabriel invokes the text as prophetic and informative. In others, however, Gabriel recognizes the novel's limitations. After Sergeant Cuff suggests that Rachel had stolen the diamond herself, Gabriel describes "the first trouble I remember in many years, which was not to be dispelled by a puff of tobacco and which was even out of reach of Robinson Crusoe” (165). For most of his personal life, Robinson Crusoe serves to inform and guide Gabriel. However, faced with the task of contributing to a community narrative, the singular and solitary novelistic form fails. Collins presents Sergeant Cuff as a contrast to Gabriel, a character who focuses on a novel to illuminate his worldview. As a character, Sergeant Cuff represents intertextuality by introducing elements of the city into the Verinders' country life, expressing seemingly irreconcilable interests (i.e. detection and roses) and his concern detail. Her presence at the Verinder estate interrupts the coherent narrative of trust and transparency between mother and daughter, mistress and servant by implicating Rachel in the theft. The text that Sergeant Cuff introduces into Gabriel's story is the poem "The Last Rose of Summer" by Thomas Moore. Notably, Sergeant Cuff manages to express intertextuality without actually using text by constantly whistling the song. Although the words are never explicitly included in the text, the novel's guiding principle—that Sergeant Cuff has “never yet encountered a trifle”—implies that the reference is worth exploring (125). Indeed, the poem's words reflect the tension between solitude and community through the imagery of a rose "left to bloom alone" (ln. 2). Although the first stanza of the poem evokes the solitude of “the last rose of summer” whose “charming companions / are faded and gone” (ln 1; 3-4), the speaker insists on community, even if this community must be realized. by death. The speaker asks the last rose to “Go and sleep with them” – that is, the “beautiful” roses whose death preceded his (11-12). The lines "So kindly I scatter/Thy leaves o'er the bed" could even refer to the leaves of a book, reinforcing the idea that distinct texts work together to create a coherent sense of narrative community (13-14) . The final lines of the poem complete the idea that could theoretically serve as Collins' guiding rhetorical question when writing The Moonstone: “Oh! who would live alone/This dark world? detection. By using these other texts, Collins circumvents the necessary immediacy of dialogue and personal communication. Rosanna Spearman's letter to Franklin Blake, which she left for him after her suicide, provides the perfect example of such intertextual information. The text itself seems to rejoice in the intertext status of the letter on several levels. First, the “letter” actually contains several texts, including the short note, the nightgown, the memorandum and finally the long letter. Second, Franklin's method of reading the letter—by forcing Gabriel to read it and select the important parts—destroys the writer-reader relationship that an independent text (like a novel) would imply. Collins' use of intertextuality expands the possibilities of the novel form. However, the manic and obsessive intertextuality found in the narrative of.