Excerpt from The Mystery of Edwin Drood
As Sketches by Boz may be looked upon as the first volume in a set of Dickens"s works, so Edwin Drood may be looked upon as the last.
According to Longfellow, Edwin Drood is "the most beautiful of all Dickens"s works."
The fact that he never lived to finish it casts a shadow of sadness over the story. He died at the comparatively early age of fifty-eight.
At the time he was planning the outline of the novel, symptoms of paralysis began to show themselves. His second American tour had overtaxed his strength. In a letter to Forster, during his farewell readings, he writes: "I laid aside the fancy I told you of and have a very curious and new idea for my new story. Not a communicable idea - or the interest of the book would be gone - but a very strong one, though difficult to work."
It has been definitely stated that the idea for the story sprang from a Rochester mystery. A bachelor residing in the High Street was trustee for his nephew. This nephew was living in the West Indies, but he unexpectedly returned. Soon after his arrival in England he disappeared. Eventually the skeleton of a young man was found near the trustees house. The deduction was obvious.
Dickens had agreed with Messrs. Chappell"s to give a hundred readings, but on April 22nd, 1869, his doctor forbade him to continue. He took a rest. Some months later, in order to be near the social calls that were made upon him - he had been at court and the Queen had given him a copy of her Highland book, and had persuaded him to become a Privy Councillor - he rented a house at 5, Park Place, where he gave a brilliant reception on April 7th, 1870.
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