Product Description

Edwin Drood is contracted to marry Orphan Rosa, but they break the engagement off-and soon afterwards Edwin disappears. Is it murder? And is his jealous uncle-a sinister choirmaster with a double life and designs on Rosa-the killer? Dickens died before completing the story, leaving the mystery unsolved and encouraging successive generations of readers to turn detective. In addition to its tantalizing crime, the novel also offers a characteristically Dickensian mix of the fantastical world of the imagination and a vibrantly journalistic depiction of gritty reality.

This edition features a new critical introduction that assesses the evidence to show whether the mystery can truly be solved, as well as a chronology, illustrations, appendixes (including one on opium use in the nineteenth century).

Edited with an introduction and notes by David Paroissien.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #87162 in Books
• Published on: 2002-05-28
• Released on: 2002-05-28
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 432 pages

Review
Who killed Edwin Drood? Was he, in fact, murdered at all? And who is the very white-haired (and black-eyebrowed) Datchery? Those were the major questions left in mystery when Dickens died after writing only about half of The Mystery of Edwin Drood. And Garfield's attempt at completing the book - hardly the first such - wisely chooses to solve the murder mystery in the most generally accepted manner, the manner clearly indicated by Dickens' notes and conversations: opium addict Jasper is the killer, and he deposited his nephew's body in the quicklime beneath the Cathedral. On other counts, however, the plot turns here are somewhat disappointing. Datchery is not the lawyer Grewgious in disguise nor Helena Landless . . . but an actor-turned-detective working for Grewgious: an awfully mundane explanation. A second murder - of Neville Landless - seems arbitrary, And Jasper's death-cell confession - though based (perhaps too literally) on Dickens' own stated intentions - seems rather more akin to Tony Perkins' schizoid Psycho revelation than to anything that Dickens would have written. As for Garfield's style in the concluding 100 pages - it's an agreeable enough compromise: a modern equivalent of a Dickensian style instead of an imitation. But it must be said that Dickens' other-worldly aura collapses almost immediately in Garfield's chapters: the dark themes are not picked up on; the pace is too hurried (Dickens' own finale would probably have been at least half-again as long); the shifts between past and present tense become noticeably jarring (with Dickens, they're invisible); there's a contemporary flatness to the similes and digressions. All in all, then, this is a tasteful, talented, cautious job of work - good enough to give lucky readers an excuse to read (or re-read) the original, but not (how could it be?) the much-missed second half of a minor masterpiece. (Kirkus Reviews)

From the Publisher
Founded in 1906 by J.M. Dent, the Everyman Library has always tried to make the best books ever written available to the greatest number of people at the lowest possible price. Unique editorial features that help Everyman Paperback Classics stand out from the crowd include: a leading scholar or literary critic's introduction to the text, a biography of the author, a chronology of her or his life and times, a historical selection of criticism, and a concise plot summary. All books published since 1993 have also been completely restyled: all type has been reset, to offer a clarity and ease of reading unique among editions of the classics; a vibrant, full-color cover design now complements these great texts with beautiful contemporary works of art. But the best feature must be Everyman's uniquely low price. Each Everyman title offers these extensive materials at a price that competes with the most inexpensive editions on the market-but Everyman Paperbacks have durable binding, quality paper, and the highest editorial and scholarly standards.

About the Author
Charles Dickens (1812-1870) was born in Portsmouth, England, and grew up in poverty, one of eight children. He became the preeminent writer of Victorian England, with most of his novels appearing in serial form before being published as books.

David Paroissien was educated in England and the United States and received his Ph.D. from UCLA. He taught for many years at the University of Massachusetts and is now emeritus professor of English. He is also the editor of the Dickens Quarterly.

Customer Reviews

The Game Is Afoot, But We'll Never Know the Outcome
It is so strange to see a long, well-plotted novel suddenly come to a dead stop. (Of a projected twelve episodes, Dickens wrote six before his death.) The title character is either murdered or missing, and a large cast of characters in London and Cloisterham (Dickens's Rochester) are involved in their own way in discovering what happened to Edwin Drood.

There is first of all John Jasper, an opium addict who suspiciously loves Drood's ex-fiancee; there is a nameless old woman who dealt him the opium who is trying to nail Jasper; there is a suspicious pile of quicklime Jasper notices during a late night stroll through the cathedral precincts; there is Durdles who knows all the secrets of the Cathedral of Cloisterham's underground burial chambers; there is the "deputy," a boy in the pay of several characters who has seen all the comings and goings; there are the Anglo-Indian Landless twins, one of whom developed a suspicious loathing for Drood; there is the lovely Rosebud, unwilling target of every man's affections; and we haven't even begun talking about Canon Crisparkle, Datchery, Tartar, and a host of other characters. All we know is that the game is afoot, but we'll never know the outcome.

It would have been nice to know how Dickens tied together all these threads, but we can still enjoy THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD because -- wherever Dickens was heading with it -- it is very evidently the equal of his best works. Life is fleeting, and not all masterpieces are finished.

Sweet Torment for Mystery Lovers
This novel has stayed on my mind ever since I read it. It's so frustrating that Dickens died before completing this novel. On the other hand, the fact that this classic British mystery was never finished has created a great opportunity for literary critics and mystery lovers alike to try to solve the mystery for themselves. We'll never know who Dickens really had in mind as the murderer, or if indeed there was a murder after all. That's a huge loss. But it's a great ride for readers to try to make up their own minds.

I still haven't made up my mind about who did it. Sure, there is a very obvious suspect in Jasper, but that doesn't mean Dickens thought he did it. Some people have speculated that Dickens wrote this novel as a tribute to his friend Wilkie Collins' "The Moonstone," so perhaps the opium addiction would have played a huge part in the mystery. It's even possible that Dickens saw a bit of himself in Jasper's tortured love life because of the way it paralleled his own life. After all, Cloisterham is supposed to be based on Dickens' Rochester. Then again, just because Dickens sympathized with someone, that doesn't mean that character was innocent, either, does it? Now you see why this story continues to torment mystery lovers.

Like any other Dickens novel, this one has lots of memorable characters, from the suspicious and tormented Jasper to the Reverend Crisparkle to Princess Puffer. And of course, the enigmatic Datchery. The gravedigger and his obnoxious but perceptive boy assistant provide both Dickensian eccentric characters and possible clues.

The power of this book even today is clear in the way it inspired an award-winning Broadway musical where the audience got to solve the mystery on their own. (By the way, 1935 movie with Claude Rains was good, but some of the main characters were cut out, and others seemed little like the characters in the book, even if they were fine actors.)

Anne M. Marble
All About Romance and Holly Lisle's Forward Motion Writing Community

Unsolved mystery?
I am inclined to agree with the majority who believe that the crime was in fact murder, and the culprit was in fact the one that Dickens points directly at. I don't think that this Dickens mystery was meant to be your typical mystery with the surprise ending, the culprit being the one you'd least suspect.

If this had been a Mary Higgins Clark mystery, the culprit would have been the best dressed, safest looking man, and the red herring would have been the sleazy looking guy. But I just can't understand why Dickens would have wasted so much description and plot designed to turn us against the leading suspect, only to veer away onto another at the end.

So, with my position being that there really is no big mystery to "who did it", where does the greatness of Dickens show itself in this book? The answer, as always in Dickens novels, is in the characters. We get to meet some hard-to-forget Dickens people, not the least of which is the Raskolnikov-like killer, an opium smoker who loves two people in his world and kills one of them so that he can possess the other.

The missing chapters of the book would have given us the satisfaction of seeing just how the good guys win, and tying a bunch of loose ends together.