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Audiobook editionPaperback · 6 × 9 in · printing soonHardcover · 6 × 9 in · printing soonAbout this book
A costly necklace sits at the center of a world where wealth, love, and secrets are hard to separate.
In The Corbin Necklace, Henry Kitchell Webster brings mystery and romance into the world of wealth and social position. A valuable piece of jewelry anchors the puzzle. Around it, appearances invite doubt, and a love interest complicates the search for truth. Trust matters, but so does the caution that suspicion brings.
This is a mystery of manners as well as deception. Money gives the setting its tension, while hidden motives make appearances uncertain. Webster's early twentieth-century fiction offers a slower, more courteous pace: conversations have room to unfold, social rules carry weight, and love and doubt pull in different directions.
What you’ll discover
- A jewel at the center Follow a puzzle built around costly jewelry in a world shaped by wealth.
- Romance shadowed by doubt Explore the tension between wanting to trust someone and having reasons for caution.
- Appearances worth questioning Look past what people show as deception complicates the search for truth.
- Manners that matter Enter a social world where money and position give the mystery its texture.
- Room to follow suspicion Settle into longer conversations and a measured pace that lets uncertainty linger.
Who will love it
You will enjoy this if you like country house mysteries, clever children who see more than adults, sharp family quarrels, and a wedding that goes sideways.
What’s inside
The key ideas, in the 15-minute summary
- Punch sees danger around the pearls
- An empty box brings strange laughter
- Victoria wants the questions to stop
- Punch follows a small nighttime clue
- The returned pearls deepen the mystery
- Judy asks the neighbor to choose
- Judy feels bound by another's bargain
- Polite appearances hide fear and love
- Small details keep the puzzle fair
Who’s who
- Punch CorbinA sharp, serious thirteen-year-old who guards his grandmother's pearls and notices every detail others miss, and who wants the thief found.
- Judy CorbinPunch's twenty-year-old sister, honest and reckless, who is about to marry a man she does not love and hides a secret.
- Victoria CorbinPunch and Judy's mother, in conflict with her mother-in-law and afraid of what the necklace will expose.
- Mrs. CorbinThe old matriarch in a wheelchair, who owns the pearls and the fortune and rules the family by force of will.
- Bill GrantBruce's cousin, a young writer with a history with Judy, who is determined to do the honorable thing.
- Bruce AppleburyJudy's stiff, self-satisfied fiancé from Massachusetts, who expects the wedding to go on as planned.
- Mr. Ethelbert SmithA tall, elderly retired jeweler and old family friend, who knows the Corbin pearls and reads people closely.
- Alexander CorbinPunch's uncle, home from the Philippines after thirty years, who wants to call detectives and set things right.
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The Corbin Necklace
Thirteen-year-old Punch guards his grandmother's pearls with a rifle while trouble gathers around his sister's wedding.
Easy read2–5 hours to read20 languages
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“Oh, damn the necklace!”
In short
Would you trust a thirteen-year-old with a necklace worth a hundred thousand dollars? In The Corbin Necklace, Punch Corbin does more than that.
The Corbin Necklace at a glance
- Reading time
- About 3 h 55 min3 h 5 min fast, 4 h 35 min slow
- Length
- 55,400 words
- Library level
- Easy short sentences, plain words
Reading time at 238 words a minute (fast 300, slow 200). How long the classics take to read · Updated
From the 15-minute summary · Key idea 1
A boy decides the pearls need guarding
The story opens with Punch asking his neighbor what the Corbin necklace is really worth. He is thirteen and thinks like a detective from a magazine. He has worked out that a thief could not sell the pearls whole, so he would break the string and sell them one at a time.
A newspaper says his grandmother means to give the pearls to his sister Judy as a wedding present. Punch thinks printing that was foolish. The pearls live in an old iron safe with a startled stag painted on the door, in a house about to fill with strangers.
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Details
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- English
- Reading time
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- Level
- Easy read
Cite this edition
Webster, Henry Kitchell. The Corbin Necklace. Library of Alexandria, 2026, libraryofalexandria.com/products/the-corbin-necklace.
Webster, H. K. (2026). The Corbin necklace. Library of Alexandria. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/the-corbin-necklace
Webster, Henry Kitchell. The Corbin Necklace. Library of Alexandria, 2026. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/the-corbin-necklace.
@book{webster2026corbin,
author = {Webster, Henry Kitchell},
title = {The Corbin Necklace},
publisher = {Library of Alexandria},
year = {2026},
url = {https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/the-corbin-necklace}
}
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What is The Corbin Necklace about?
It follows a wealthy Illinois family before a wedding, when a famous pearl necklace goes missing and returns. A thirteen-year-old boy, his sister, and an elderly jeweler try to learn who took it and why.
Who tells the story in The Corbin Necklace?
A neighbor and longtime friend of the Corbins tells it. He has a broken leg and stays in a cottage, so he learns most events from Punch, Judy, and Mr. Smith.
Is The Corbin Necklace a true story?
No, it is a work of fiction by Henry Kitchell Webster, an American writer who died in 1932. The family, the house called The Oaks, and the necklace are invented for the mystery.
The author
Henry Kitchell Webster
1875–1932 · American novelist
Henry Kitchell Webster was an American author born in Evanston, Illinois, in 1875. He wrote novels and short stories, including The Corbin Necklace and The Real Adventure, published in 1916. He also wrote Calumet K with Samuel Merwin in 1901. He died in Evanston in 1932.
“Oh, damn the necklace!”
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