Victorians! discussion

Welcome to the reading of Charles Dickens' last book--alas, unfinished.

The Mystery of Edwin Drood is the final novel by the English author Charles Dickens and was originally published in 1870.

Upon the death of Dickens on 9 June 1870, the novel was left unfinished in his writing desk, only six of a planned twelve installments having been written. He left no detailed plan for the remaining installments or solution to the novel's mystery, and many later adaptations and continuations by other writers have attempted to complete the story.

The Mystery of Edwin Drood was scheduled to be published in twelve installments (shorter than Dickens's usual twenty) from April 1870 to February 1871, each costing one shilling and illustrated by Luke Fildes. Only six of the installments were completed before Dickens’ death in 1870. It was therefore approximately half finished.

I: April 1870 (chapters 1–5)
II: May 1870 (chapters 6–9)
III: June 1870 (chapters 10–12)
IV: July 1870 (chapters 13–16)
V: August 1870 (chapters 17–20)
VI: September 1870 (chapters 21–23)

Planned installments never published:

VII: October 1870
VIII: November 1870
IX: December 1870
X: January 1871
XI, XII: February 1871

Completing Dickens' Final Work

Supplying a conclusion to The Mystery of Edwin Drood has occupied writers from the time of Dickens' death to the present day.
The first three attempts to complete the story were undertaken by Americans.

The first, by Robert Henry Newell, published under the pen name Orpheus C. Kerr in 1870, was as much a parody as a continuation, transplanting the story to the United States. It is a "burlesque" farce rather than a serious attempt to continue in the spirit of the original story.

The second ending was written by Henry Morford, a New York journalist. He traveled to Rochester with his wife and published the ending serially during his stay in England from 1871 to 1872. Titled John Jasper's Secret: Sequel to Charles Dickens' Mystery of Edwin Drood, newspaper articles from 1870 confirmed that the story would be completed and authored by Charles Dickens, Jr. and Wilkie Collins, despite Collins' disavowal, the illustrative green cover for the book was designed by Charles Allston Collins who was both Charles Dickens' son in law and Wilkie Collins' brother.

The third attempt was perhaps the most unusual. In 1873, a Brattleboro, Vermont, printer, Thomas Power James, published a version which he claimed had been literally 'ghost-written' by him channeling Dickens's spirit. A sensation was created, with several critics, including Arthur Conan Doyle, a spiritualist himself, praising this version, calling it similar in style to Dickens's work; and for several decades the James version of Edwin Drood was common in America. Other Drood scholars disagree. John C. Walters dismissed it with contempt, stating that the work "is self-condemned by its futility, illiteracy, and hideous American mannerisms; the mystery itself becomes a nightmare, and the solution only deepens the obscurity."

Four of the most recent of the posthumous collaborations are The Mystery of Edwin Drood by Leon Garfield (1980), The Decoding of Edwin Drood (1980) by Charles Forsyte, The Disappearance of Edwin Drood, a Holmesian pastiche by Peter Rowland (1992), and The Mystery of Edwin Drood by David Madden (2011). The D Case (1989) offered a humorous literary critique by the Italian duo Fruttero & Lucentini.

There is some discrepancy in whether the unfinished manuscript consists of twenty-two or twenty-three chapters. The edition I am reading (which contains the ending written by Leon Garfield), is missing the chapter titled "A Recognition." I need to do some further research, but I believe that it is just an issue with chapter titling rather than leaving out actual pages written by Dickens. If you are reading an edition from the list above that has an actual ending, it might be fun to compare their styles to Dickens and the different conclusions those later authors reached once we have finished discussing the book. What do you think?

Charles Dickens

Biographical Summary from Encyclopedia Britannica:

Charles Dickens, (born Feb. 7, 1812, Portsmouth, Hampshire, Eng.—died June 9, 1870, Gad’s Hill, near Chatham, Kent), British novelist, generally considered the greatest of the Victorian period. The defining moment of Dickens’s life occurred when he was 12 years old. With his father in debtors’ prison, he was withdrawn from school and forced to work in a factory. This deeply affected the sensitive boy. Though he returned to school at 13, his formal education ended at 15. As a young man, he worked as a reporter. His fiction career began with short pieces reprinted as Sketches by “Boz” (1836). He exhibited a great ability to spin a story in an entertaining manner and this quality, combined with the serialization of his comic novel The Pickwick Papers (1837), made him the most popular English author of his time. The serialization of such works as Oliver Twist (1838) and The Old Curiosity Shop (1841) followed. After a trip to America, he wrote A Christmas Carol (1843) in a few weeks. With Dombey and Son (1848), his novels began to express a heightened uneasiness about the evils of Victorian industrial society, which intensified in the semiautobiographical David Copperfield (1850), as well as in Bleak House (1853), Little Dorrit (1857), Great Expectations (1861), and others. A Tale of Two Cities (1859) appeared in the period when he achieved great popularity for his public readings. Dickens’s works are characterized by an encyclopaedic knowledge of London, pathos, a vein of the macabre, a pervasive spirit of benevolence and geniality, inexhaustible powers of character creation, an acute ear for characteristic speech, and a highly individual and inventive prose style.

Other sources for additional information about Dickens and his impact on literature:

Encyclopedia Britannica

https://www.britannica.com/biography/...

The Charles Dickens Page

https://www.charlesdickenspage.com/

If you want some more . . . 🙂

Charles Dickens: Tale of Ambition and Genius

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QNOug...


Here's a short version (about five minutes):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Bgvs...

If you need access to a copy of the book, here are several options:

Project Gutenberg - https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/564
Full Text Archive - https://www.fulltextarchive.com/book/...
Audiobook on Librivox: https://librivox.org/the-mystery-of-e...

Reading Schedule:

Since it is unfinished, this book is considerably shorter than many of Dickens’ other works. This means our read will be rather leisurely, so I hope that means you will have more time to savor the experience!

Week 1: May 5 - 11 – Chapter I - III
Week 2: May 12 - 18 – Chapter IV -VII
Week 3: May 19 - 25 – Chapter VIII - IX
Week 4: May 26 - June 1 - Chapter X - XI
Week 5: June 2 - 8 - Chapter XII - XIV
Week 6: June 9 - 15 – Chapter XV - XVII
Week 7: June 16 - 22 – Chapter XVIII - XX
Week 8: June 23 - 29 – Chapter XXI - XXII

I read Drood such a long time ago and loved it. I always intended to go back and read The Mystery of Edwin Drood and here is my chance! I’ve started it today via Internet archive!

I'm very undecided whether to read this book. It's a book that doesn't have an ending...

I am so excited to read my last Dickens novel, which is the last Dickens novel. And it'll be fun to read it with a group. So glad this one was picked. I don't have a problem with unfinished novels. Wives and Daughters is one of my all-time favorite novels, and sadly Gaskill died before it was finished. Austen never had a chance to revise Persuasion so while it is finished, I don't think it is as polished as she would've wanted. Anyway, I ramble.

Daniela wrote: "I'm very undecided whether to read this book. It's a book that doesn't have an ending..."

True, and only half finished at that. But I read it several years ago and found it intriguing anyway. Plus, it’s the last thing Dickens wrote.

Your decision will probably be influenced by how much Dickens you’ve already read. An unfinished novel is much more interesting when you can put it into the context of an author’s body of work.

I have already read The Pickwick Papers, Oliver Twist, Nicholas Nickleby, The Old Curiosity Shop , Dombey and Son, David Copperfield, Bleak House, Little Dorrit, A Tale of Two Cities, Great Expectations and Our Mutual Friend. I have to read I think other three or four novels. But since you, who have already read it, have a positive opinion, I think I will read it!

I think you’ll enjoy the experience. I am very much looking forward to the discussion!

Daniela wrote: "I'm very undecided whether to read this book. It's a book that doesn't have an ending..."

Daniela: It is a little strange to knowingly go into a book that is unfinished. I guess with a master like Dickens, people feel that there are still things to be learned and enjoyment to be had even from an incomplete book. As I mentioned in my notes above, there are editions with endings available, although not by Dickens. From what I have read, the endings written by Garfield, Forsyte, and Madden are not wholly to be despised. Garfield seems to have a slight edge over the others in his rendition and its similarity to Dickens in style. That is the copy I am going to be reading, but I believe I will probably also order a copy of the Madden book. I think it will be interesting to see how these two authors interpreted Dickens' work!

Elaine wrote: "I read Drood such a long time ago and loved it. I always intended to go back and read The Mystery of Edwin Drood and here is my chance! I’ve started it today via Internet archive!"

That's great to hear! I look forward to reading your thoughts as we get into the book.

Renee wrote: "Your decision will probably be influenced by how much Dickens you’ve already read. An unfinished novel is much more interesting when you can put it into the context of an author’s body of work...."

Great point, Renee, and so true!

Jane wrote: "I am so excited to read my last Dickens novel, which is the last Dickens novel. And it'll be fun to read it with a group. So glad this one was picked. I don't have a problem with unfinished novels...."

It's not rambling, it's sharing, and highly encouraged! So great to have you join us in the read!

Cindy wrote: "Welcome to the reading of Charles Dickens' last book--alas, unfinished.

The Mystery of Edwin Drood is the final novel by the English author Charles Dickens and was originally published in 1870.

U..."

The BBC attempted to devise their own ending to The Mystery of Edwin Drood by commissioning Gwyneth Hughes to write a screenplay for them. It was screened in 2012 in 2 episodes.

Gwyneth Hughes’ approach and journey in attempting such a task is described here (no real spoilers, just an overview of themes.)

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-l...

Here is a link to the TV adaptation..

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1991897/

I'm looking forward to joining in on this read (it's been a while)! I try to tackle a Dickens book every couple of years, and it's been at least three or four years since my last one (David Copperfield). I just picked up a copy from the library -- the Everyman's Library edition -- and read the introduction by Peter Ackroyd about how Dickens came to write this book.

Additionally, I've been listening to the audiobook The Suspicions of Mr. Whicher: Murder and the Undoing of a Great Victorian Detective by Kate Summerscale about a true crime that likely inspired Dickens, certainly in his Inspector Bucket from Bleak House, but also possibly some of the particulars in Edwin Drood. I'm curious to see if there are similarities myself...

What a wonderfully interesting perspective, Wendy! I’m really looking forward to the conversations this group has on Edwin Drood.

I found a very interesting website, called Droodiana . Be careful of spoilers, but there's lots to explore.
https://sites.google.com/view/droodia...

Ginny wrote: "I found a very interesting website, called
Droodiana
. Be careful of spoilers, but there's lots to explore.
https://sites.google.com/view/droodia...

"

Wonderful site Ginny. I really liked the collection of illustrators with their work right up to 2022!

Here is an old favourite site - the Victorian Web - which includes more information about The Mystery of Edwin Drood

https://victorianweb.org/authors/dick...

Cindy, regarding the number of chapters written by Dickens, the introduction by David Paroissien to my 2002 Penguin Classics edition states:
Dickens’s death almost exactly halfway through the novel created problems for subsequent editors. Two of the remaining parts (four and five) he had read in proof while the sixth, almost complete, existed only in manuscript. Faced with the responsibility of making available as much of the fragment as he could, Dickens’s literary executor, John Forster, decided as follows: (i) to restore the excisions Dickens had made in proof (some 150 lines) when he found he had overwritten the August number; (2) to redress the resulting imbalance by splitting the original Chapter 20 (‘Divers Flights’) in two and modifying the title; (3) to carry over the second part of the divided chapter (with a new title entirely of his devising) into the September (and final) number, thereby bringing it closer to the required thirty-two pages. The changes thus increased the total number of chapters by one and introduced two new chapter titles: ‘A Flight’ and ‘A Recognition’.

Trev wrote: "Ginny wrote: "I found a very interesting website, called
Droodiana
. Be careful of spoilers, but there's lots to explore.
https://sites.google.com/view/droodia...

Here is an old favourite site - the Victorian Web - which includes more information about The Mystery of Edwin Drood . . . "

Thanks, Ginny and Trev, for two more wonderful resources!

Carlton wrote: "Cindy, regarding the number of chapters written by Dickens, the introduction by David Paroissien to my 2002 Penguin Classics edition states:
The changes thus increased the total number of chapters by one and introduced two new chapter titles: ‘A Flight’ and ‘A Recognition’...."

Thank you for solving that mystery, Carlton! I take it as a propitious sign that we're solving mysteries even before we begin! :)

Elaine wrote: "I read Drood such a long time ago and loved it. I always intended to go back and read The Mystery of Edwin Drood and here is my chance! I’ve started it today via Internet archive!"

Drood has been wanting patiently on my TBR shelves for me to finally read The Mystery of Edwin Drood.

Hi! Sorry if I'm late to the party. I recently read The Frozen Deep and I wanted more. I was guided to this read, stumbled my way through the first chapter, and decided I'd love to continue on even knowing the adventure might end prematurely. Thanks for all the background, I'm looking forward to getting lost in this read!

Jane wrote: "Drood has been wanting patiently on my TBR shelves for me to finally read The Mystery of Edwin Drood.

..."

This seems like the perfect opportunity! :)

Tyler wrote: "Hi! Sorry if I'm late to the party. I recently read The Frozen Deep and I wanted more. I was guided to this read, stumbled my way through the first chapter, and decided I'd love to continue on even..."

Glad to have you join us, Tyler! I look forward to seeing what you think.