Physical description

The Mystery of Edwin Drood
Hard Cover, Blue.
Author: Charles Dickens
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Date: 1966
Further Information: With twelve illustrations by Luke Fildes and two by Charles Collins

Publication type

fiction

Inscriptions & markings

The label on the spine cover with typed text PAT 823 DIC
Pasted own front end paper has a sticker from Warrnambool Public Library.
Front loose end paper has a stamp from Corangamite Regional Library Service.

Summary

Charles Dickens (1812–1870) was one of the great English novelists of the Victorian era, famous for vivid characters, social criticism, and stories that were first published in serial form. He began as a journalist, rose to enormous popularity during his lifetime, and wrote major works such as Oliver Twist, David Copperfield, and Great Expectations.
The Mystery of Edwin Drood is Charles Dickens’s final, unfinished novel about the mysterious disappearance (likely murder) of a young man named Edwin Drood in the fictional cathedral town of Cloisterham, England. The theme centres around Edwin who is engaged to Rosa Bud in a marriage arranged by their fathers. Both are unhappy with the arrangement and decide to break it off.
Edwin’s uncle John Jasper, is the cathedral’s choirmaster, and secretly obsesses over Rosa and is an opium addict. After a tense Christmas Eve dinner with Edwin and the hot tempered Neville Landless (who also likes Rosa), Edwin disappears. Neville is suspected because he was last seen with Edwin, but there’s no body and not enough evidence to charge him. There is also a mysterious figure named Datchery who arrives in Cloisterham to investigate, and an elderly woman from an opium den called Princess Puffer who begins shadowing Jasper.