The Mystery of Edwin Drood - Hardcover

Charles Dickens

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1857152832 ISBN 13: 9781857152838

Publisher: Random House, 2004

Synopsis

Dicken's last, unfinished novel published in 1870, Edwin Drood is a murder mystery with an atmosphere all of its own. The novelist's unique descriptive powers are brought to bear on a drama which foreshadows the detective stories of Conan Doyle on the one hand and the nightmarish novels of Kafka on the other. Set, like so many nineteenth-century English novels, in an apparently innocuous provincial city, the story rapidy darkens when the atmosphere thickens with a sense of impending evil. As in all Dickens's greatest books, it is the gulf between appearance and reality which drives the action. In public a man of unimpeachable integrity, the benevolent John Jasper leads the Cloisterham cathedral choir. In private he is an addict who frequents the sleaziest opium dens. Apparently smiling on the engagement of his nephew, the Edwin Drood of the title, he is so consumed by jealousy that he terrifies the boy's fiancee Rosa Budd, and plots to murder him. Despite being one of the author's darkest books, Edwin Drood is filled with the bustle of memorable minor characters who populate all his stories: Billikins, the landlady; the foolish Mr Sapsea; the domineering philanthropist, Mr Honeythunder; and the mysterious Datchery. Several attempts have been made to complete the book and solve the puzzle, but even in its unfinished state it remains a gripping and troubling masterpiece.

About this title

From the Publisher

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From the Back Cover

The main issue in the novel is the disappearance of Edwin Drood and the suspicion that he has been murdered. But as intriguing as this central plot are the startling innovations in Dicken's work and the troubled elements lurking within the novel: a dark opium underworld, the uneasy and violent fantasies of its inhabitants, the disquieting presence of old 'Princess Puffer', of the quiet cathedral town of Cloisterham from which people have to escape in order to save themselves--and, at the centre, the menacing figure of Jasper.

About this edition

• Publisher: Random House
• Publication date: 2004
• ISBN 10: 1857152832
• ISBN 13: 9781857152838
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 352