The Mystery of Edwin Drood - Dickens and Garfield

I decided that for my next Dickens adventure, I would read his last book, namely The Mystery of Edwin Drood. I started off on the ebook in November 2018 and found it a wonderful read. It meandered along at a very leisurely pace and was just getting into the nitty gritty of the story when the book finished mid sentence, so to speak. 

A browse on the net provided the answer - Dickens had died on 9 June 1870 with the book unfinished. The book was scheduled to be published in twelve instalments (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 instalments were completed before Dickens's death in 1870. It was therefore approximately half finished.

A brief summary: 

Although the novel is named after the character Edwin Drood, it focuses more on Drood's uncle, John Jasper, a precentor, choirmaster and opium addict, who is in love with his pupil, Rosa Bud. Miss Bud, Edwin Drood's fiancée, has also caught the eye of the high-spirited and hot-tempered Neville Landless. Landless and Edwin Drood take an instant dislike to one another. Later Drood disappears under mysterious circumstances.

Although the book finishes without the killer being revealed, a number of people revealed that Dickens had told them that that John Jasper, Edwin's uncle, was to be the murderer. 

Supplying a conclusion to The Mystery of Edwin Drood has occupied writers from the time of Dickens' death to the present day. One of the most recent of the posthumous collaborations and one held in generally high regard is by Leon Garfield (1980).

I ordered a copy from Readings Bookshop and found it was a Print On Demand book. I ordered it, hoping it would be here for Christmas 2018. Alas, that deadline came and went, and it was not until late January 2019 that it finally turned up. That is the cover illustrated above.

Now to a brief discussion of the book. 

The story is set in Cloisterham, a lightly disguised Rochester (according to Wikipedia). It meanders along at a very leisurely pace, painting a picture of a town built around its cathedral and its religious practices. The characters are well part of the cathedral society and are described and developed, as we have come to expect from Dickens, and the story starts to build, only to finish mid sentence.

Garfield is not Dickens but he does a good job to recreate the writing style of Dickens. He diligently extrapolates from the obvious clues in Dickens’s text and from some of what Dickens disclosed. 

I was reticent at first, comparing Garfield to Dickens. But as Garfield's section developed, I found I was really enjoying watching the story unfold. He does in fact try to write as Dickens did and he does a pretty darn good job.

I had a spare morning so finished the last 120 pages in a single read, and was extremely satisfied in the way that Garfield brought all the characters and threads together. He also included a few connecting threads that were obviously his own invention.

Taken together, a superb book and one I highly recommend.

1 March 2019