(The verdict? Everyone was guilty.)īecause a successful movie hinges upon having an ending, filmmakers who adapted The Mystery of Edwin Drood for the screen were forced to fill in the blanks. There have been Drood radio programs, television miniseries, big-budget movies and even a mock trial for John Jasper, staged in London in 1914 and featuring George Bernard Shaw as a wisecracking jury foreman. Thus, the enigma of Dickens’ incomplete text has been left to those who interpret the novel in other media. Other adaptations, including one by an author who claimed that Dickens’ spirit had actually possessed him, did not receive such high praise. Morford’s entry, titled John Jasper’s Secret: Sequel to Charles Dickens’ Mystery of Edwin Drood, was even rumored to have been authored by Charles Dickens Jr. Henry Morford published a series continuation that found Edwin Drood alive and revealed two identities of detective Datchery. No wonder the story of poor Edwin Drood remained fascinating over the next hundred years to writers of all kinds-not to mention a 20th century composer who first found fame with the pop hit "Escape (The Pina Colada Song)."Īlmost immediately after Dickens’ death, some Droodians chose to tackle the story themselves. ![]() This deduction is generally agreed upon, but nevertheless, no theory about Drood, Jasper or Datchery has received the happy honor of being unanimously accepted. In a biography of the author, John Forster wrote that Dickens had revealed to him that “the story…was to be that of the murder of a nephew by his uncle.” Additional evidence unearthed over the years, including testimony from Drood’s illustrator, Luke Fildes, and Dickens’ son, Charles Jr., supported the idea that Edwin was in fact killed by his uncle, Jasper. The novel’s ambiguous non-conclusion begs three questions: Was Edwin Drood murdered? If so, who did it? And which character goes undercover as Dick Datchery, the shadowy detective who appears on the case six months after Drood’s disappearance? The unfinished ending of The Mystery of Edwin Drood is as much a part of the Dickensian oeuvre as any of his completed works, and the Mystery's mystery has puzzled literary experts through the ages. In a curious irregularity, Dickens did not leave behind any notes for the remaining chapters, and so the story’s biggest question-the fate of the disappeared Edwin Drood and the identity of his ostensible murderer-was left unanswered. Of the 12 installments planned for the story, Dickens had published only three and penned three others. He died a day later, thus leaving the ending of The Mystery of Edwin Drood…well, a mystery. On June 8, 1870, Dickens suffered a stroke in his home while working on the 23rd chapter. Suspicions arise about who may be responsible for Drood’s vanishing, and the cast of potential culprits includes Edwin’s fiancée, Rosa Bud his jealous uncle, John Jasper and vengeful twins Neville and Helena Landless. ![]() The story follows the title character, an ordinary man whose sudden disappearance throws the fictional townspeople of Cloisterham into a panic. ![]() Why? Well, he never finished the book.ĭickens began writing what would become his final novel, The Mystery of Edwin Drood, in 1870, with the plan of releasing a new installment every month for a year. But the fate of one famous Dickens character-young Edwin Drood-remains entirely unknown, almost 150 years after the author’s death. Before cracking the case, we dug up the Dickensian dirt on this infamously incomplete mystery.īritish author Charles Dickens created a host of famous literary characters who meet their demise by the turn of the last page: Miss Havisham went up in flames Sydney Carton lost his head even Jacob Marley was already dead on page one. A century later, Dickens’ fragmentary story inspired a zany 1985 Broadway musical, which is back on Broadway this fall in its first major revival. Even the greatest sleuths can’t get to the bottom of Charles Dickens’ The Mystery of Edwin Drood, a novel that was left unfinished when the author died suddenly halfway through writing it.
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