The Moonstone mystery

This week in the "Weekly Online Book Club of Doom" -I may need to change the name- is in the midst of The Moonstone. I am halfway through the book and something confuses me. A review on the back by T.S. Elliot says that is was the first detective novel ever. There is no publication date I can find. The book is obliviously new, I got it in Barnes and Noble for twenty bucks, no way it is a valuable relic. So is it just a reprinting of an old book or a new book made to seem like it was written in the 1800s. Does anyone know?