While recuperating from my recent heart attack I took the opportunity to read one of the many classic novels that I have always felt I should have read but have never found time for.

It was Wilkie Collins' The Moonstone, first published in 1868 and always lauded as "the first detective story". Great title of course - referring to a priceless Indian jewel which disappears on the night it is given as a birthday present to the 18-year-old daughter of a titled woman. For a Yorkshire reader, which I am, the chief setting too, somewhere on the North Yorkshire coast, probably near Robin Hood's Bay, holds interest.

But I can't recommend The Moonstone. True, it is a landmark in introducing the concept of a detective and his sidekick - the former one Sgt Cuff, imported from London, who is aided by the "house steward", perhaps better described as butler, on a country estate.

But the characters never come to life. And Collins' chosen narrative method, in which he tells the story from the perspective of several participants, involves considerable harking back and prompting of the reader's memory. "Confusing" and "tedious" are the words that spring to mind.

So getting through The Moonstone's 448 pages was a test of stamina. Many a time I felt I would have better chosen Pride and Prejudice, another of the great unread on my long, long list. Then, on page 417, came a sentence to reward my toil.

"In our modern system of civilisation, celebrity (no matter of what kind) is the lever that will move anything.'' Thus the eyes of small boy, introduced to "the great Cuff", roll as if about to "drop on to the carpet". And just a page or two later, Cuff's announcement of his "illustrious name" has the landlord of a pub grovelling.

Appropriately, the resolution of the Moonstone mystery is an anti-climax in line with the drear stuff that leads to it. (I've already forgotten who done it.) But Collins has provided evidence that "celebrity", regarded as very much the product of our own time, was up and running, known by that very name, little more than midway through the century before the last. Nor did it depend on a media that made the faces of the famous instantly recognisable to all. A mere name could trigger it. Sgt Cuff is much more than an early Morse.

Can you take more on celebrity? A stellar celebrity who has just been in the news, a witness in a libel action, is Mia Farrow. She figures in a marvellous song, My New Celebrity, by the wonderful jazz singer-pianist Blossom Dearie.

Opening with the lines: "I dig Modigliani, Jolson doing Swanee", it also has this (and forgive me if I haven't got the car name quite right):

"I swooned as Mia Farrow, angular and narrow, drove her Piazarrow to a Gatsby revue.

"Though frozen to the marrow, who would dream of leaving that queue?

"But anyone can see, my new celebrity is you."

For good measure, which you might as well have, these brilliant lyrics continue: "Her husband, Andr Previn, absolutely heaven..." That dates the song, but not quite back to 1868.