CHAPTER VIII—HOW WAS ‘EDWIN DROOD’ TO END?

How _Edwin Drood_ was to end is a problem which can only be solved to a certain extent. We find we are left in the middle, and as much mystery remains as fully justifies the title. We do not know the precise manner in which the murder was accomplished. In particular, we are left ignorant as to the way in which the crime is to be brought home to the victim. We cannot define the relations of the opium woman to Drood and Jasper and the Landlesses. We do not know the history of Jasper’s early years. We can do no more than speculate, and the speculations must be confined within strict limits. The first question is, whether Dickens himself knew how he was going to extricate and complete his narrative.

Scott has left us the astonishing statement {184} that ‘I have generally written to the middle of one of these novels without having the least idea how it was to end.’ Mr. Skene, a true friend of Sir Walter Scott, tells us {185} that when Scott described to him the scheme which he had formed for _Anne of Geierstein_, he suggested to him that he might with advantage connect the history of René, king of Provence, in which subject Skene had special means of helping him. Scott accepted the suggestion, ‘and the whole _dénouement_ of the story of _Anne of Geierstein_ was changed, and the Provence part woven into it, in the form in which it ultimately came forth.’

Was Dickens in the same case when death interrupted him in his work?

Was this an ‘apoplectic’ novel?

Scott speaks frankly of _Count Robert of Paris_ and _Castle Dangerous_ being his ‘apoplectic books.’ Does _Edwin Drood_ bear the same relation to the body of Dickens’s work as _Count Robert of Paris_ and _Castle Dangerous_ bear to the Waverley Novels? Mr. Lang, whose views on this subject varied much, in one of his later writings takes the view that Dickens was deeply embarrassed. He says: ‘It is melancholy to think of this great and terribly overtasked genius tormented by fears that were only too real.’ He finds the story wandering on, living from hand to mouth, full of absurdities. He thinks that Dickens was very capable of changing his original purpose, and saving the life of Edwin.

There is no doubt that Dickens was puzzled about the order of his chapters. Forster tells us that Dickens ‘became a little nervous about the course of the tale from a fear that he might have plunged too soon into the incidents leading on to the catastrophe such as the Datchery assumption (a misgiving he had certainly expressed to his sister-in-law).’ I have already expressed agreement with Dr. Jackson in his plan for renumbering the chapters. Unless this plan is adopted there is chronological confusion. Also there is no doubt that Dickens had been working under terrific strain. But the testimony of those who knew him best is that his faculties were never brighter and stronger than they were in his last months.

The same impression is left upon me by his unfinished novel. Those who dislike Dickens’s later manner may easily find faults. They may say that Honeythunder is grotesque rather than amusing. They may say that Jasper’s courtship of Rosa is melodramatic and wolfish. I confess to being perpetually puzzled by the account of Neville’s capture on the morning after the murder. Why was he pursued in that manner? All that was known against him was that he had been with Edwin on the previous night. He is only eight miles away from Cloisterham, and stopping at a roadside tavern to refresh. He starts again on his journey, and becomes aware of other pedestrians behind him coming up at a faster pace than his. He stands aside to let them pass, but only four pass. Other four slackened speed, and loitered as if intending to follow him when he should go on. The remainder of the party (half a dozen, perhaps) turn and go back at a great rate. Among those who go back is Mr. Crisparkle. Nobody speaks, but they all look at him. Four walk in advance and four in the rear. Thus he is beset, and stops as a last test, and they all stop. He asks:

‘Why do you attend upon me in this way? . . . Are you a pack of thieves?’

‘Don’t answer him,’ said one of the number. . . . ‘Better be quiet. . . .’

‘I will not submit to be penned in,’ says Neville; ‘I mean to pass those four in front.’

They all stand still, and he shoulders his heavy stick and quickens his pace. The largest and strongest man of the number dexterously closes with him and goes down with him, but not before the heavy stick has descended smartly. Naturally Neville is utterly bewildered. Two of them hold his arms and lead him back into a group whose central figures are Jasper and Crisparkle. Why on earth did not Crisparkle speak to him at the beginning, and tell him what had happened? All this is somnambulistic.

There seems to be a slight slip in chapter ii.

Jasper’s room at the Gatehouse is described. It has an unfinished picture of a blooming schoolgirl hanging over the chimneypiece. At the upper end of the room Mr. Jasper opens a door and discloses a small inner room pleasantly lighted and prepared for supper.

‘Fixed as the look the young fellow meets is, there is yet in it some strange power of suddenly including the sketch over the chimneypiece.’ They dine in the inner room. The cloth is drawn, and a dish of walnuts and a decanter of rich coloured sherry are placed upon the table.

‘How’s she looking, Jack?’

Mr. Jasper’s concentrated face again includes the portrait as he returns: ‘Very like your sketch indeed.’

‘I am a little proud of it,’ says the young fellow, glancing up at the sketch with complacency, and then shutting one eye, and taking a corrected prospect of it over a level bridge of nut-crackers in the air.

Dickens seems to have forgotten that the sketch is in the other room.

It seems to me that these are slips, but I do not find any other readers have taken the same view. With these exceptions, the story seems to be one of Dickens’s best books. Its grasp of local colour and detail is as strong as ever it was. There is much of his old humour in the Mayor, in Miss Twinkleton’s Girls’ School, in Billickin, in Durdles and his attendant imp. Also the story is constructed with the greatest care and ingenuity. Any one who carefully goes over the manuscript and the proofs will see that Dickens had a plan in his mind that he half revealed and half concealed, that his phrases and details are chosen with the nicest care, and that he meant to reward those who at the end could take a ‘backward look’ by the delight they would experience in seeing how everything had been scrupulously planned and artistically conducted to a climax. We cannot do justice to the book in its present state. But Dickens’s royal genius was at its full, and would have vindicated itself. He had set himself deliberately to carrying out a plot far more exact than he had ever attempted, and the end was in view from the beginning.

This is not to say that the reason of every incident and every description was disclosed from the first. I have previously discussed Edgar Allan Poe’s reading of _Barnaby Rudge_, and shown that his perception, keen as it was, yielded him less than he thought. I have shown how Dickens prepared the plan for _Little Dorrit_ from the start of his book. It may be traced now, but without the ‘backward glance’ it would not have been easy to trace it.

We may also say with some confidence that no new characters of importance would have been introduced to us in the second half. In the chapter ‘Half Way with Dickens’ I have shown that this is the case with five of his principal books. The conclusion is not stringent, for Dickens was free to change his method. But it may be said to be highly probable; if it is true we are left to conjecture the part that the various characters would have played in the winding up of the tale.

The book was to end with the capture and conviction of Jasper. I have already written of the part played and to be played by Grewgious. Another hunter of Jasper was Durdles. The task assigned to Durdles among the hunters is fairly clear. Sooner or later, by tapping round the Sapsea monument he is to discover the presence of ‘a wheen banes,’ or at least of some unsuspected ‘rubbish.’ He had put the inscription on the monument before Christmas, and had no doubt satisfied himself then that all was safe. ‘When Durdles puts a touch or a finish upon his work, no matter where, inside or outside, Durdles likes to look at his work all round, and see that his work is a-doing him credit.’

Having made his inspection when the epitaph was put on, Durdles would have no further curiosity about the tomb until, in the following summer, he took Mr. Datchery on a rambling expedition as he had taken Jasper. His peculiar gift, like that of the bloodhound, is to aid in tracking down the quarry.

Deputy has also his part to play. From the first Jasper hates and fears Deputy, and there are signs near the close of _Edwin Drood_ that this strange boy, who has some characteristics in common with Dickie Sludge, of _Kenilworth_, is to form a close alliance with Datchery. The ugliest side of Jasper’s character displays itself in his treatment of the ‘young imp employed by Durdles.’ The chanting of the line, ‘Widdy Widdy Wake-cock warning,’ has for him a note of menace. With the fury of a devil he leaps upon the boy when he emerges from the crypt with Durdles, and hears a sharp whistle rending the silence. ‘I will shed the blood of that impish wretch!’ he cries; ‘I know I shall do it.’ Durdles has to appeal to him not to hurt the boy. ‘He followed us to-night, when we first came here,’ says Jasper. ‘He has been prowling near us ever since.’

Deputy denies both accusations. ‘I’d only just come out for my ’elth when I see you two a-coming out of the Kinfreederal.’

What has Deputy actually seen? He may have testimony to give of the most vital consequence, but even if he has seen nothing of Jasper’s movements while Durdles lies asleep, or of his approach to the Sapsea monument, he will tell Mr. Datchery of that furious onslaught when Jasper clutched his throat and threatened to kill him. He will prove a very useful ally of the hunters.

It seems quite inconceivable that either Durdles or Deputy could have known the whole secret and kept it. Neither of them was capable of keeping a secret long. But they might have suspicions, and they might and would know circumstances which when rightly interpreted led to the inevitable conclusion.

I cannot but think that the chief part in the coming narrative was to be played by the opium woman. The novel from the very first page has a touch of the East. In Wilkie Collins’s _The Moonstone_ the Indians did their part, and then vanished from the scene. But in _Edwin Drood_ we have the Landlesses from Ceylon with a touch of dark blood, or at least of the Eastern spirit. Mr. Lang is in excess of the facts when he calls them Eurasians, and Dickens hesitates in ascribing black blood to them. They are more probably gypsies. We have also the connection of Edwin Drood with the East. There is more than a suggestion of dark blood in John Jasper. Above all, we have the opium woman. What was the connection between John Jasper and the opium woman? What was John Jasper’s history before he came to Cloisterham?

We do not know, but conjectures have been hazarded. Mr. Cuming Walters thinks that the opium woman’s hatred of Jasper may be due to the fact that Jasper has wronged a child of the woman’s. He also conjectures that Jasper may be the son of the opium woman. Dr. Jackson conjectures that Jasper seduces a young girl who had treated the old woman kindly, that he neglected this girl for Rosa, that the girl committed suicide, and that the old woman devoted herself to the pursuit of the betrayer. All this is mere speculation. We have really no means of judging whether the speculation is true or not. It does seem that the woman’s peculiar hatred of Jasper must have an origin and a grave cause. Miss Stoddart suggests that the opium woman was not wholly degraded, and that she is horrified by Jasper’s continually repeated threatenings while under the influence of opium; that her sympathies have been wakened for that hapless Ned who bears a threatened name, and she resolves to do her best to serve him. With an honest purpose she makes her way before Christmas to Cloisterham. She loses sight of Jasper, but actually meets Edwin Drood. The kind act of that young stranger causes her to unload her conscience, and she bids him be thankful that his name is not Ned. At her second visit in the summer she knows from Jasper’s confessions under her own roof that the long premeditated crime has actually taken place, and her object in visiting Cloisterham is to gather evidence that may serve the ends of justice. This sunken creature has a task assigned to her, and she fulfils it.

I am not sure that Dickens means to throw any redeeming light on the character of the opium woman. She has been wronged; she is seeking vengeance, and at last, she finds it. How this comes to pass Dickens meant to tell us, but he meant, no doubt, to surprise us in the telling.

My own belief is that Dickens intended to surprise his readers by telling them of some unsuspected blood relationship between his characters. Surprises of this kind are given in his novels. No reader of _Oliver Twist_ could have guessed from the first part Oliver’s relationship to Monks and the Maylies. Who would have supposed from the first half of _Nicholas Nickleby_ that Smike was the son of Ralph?

‘That, boy,’ repeated Ralph, looking vacantly at him.

‘Whom I saw stretched dead and cold upon his bed, and who is now in his grave—’

‘Who is now in his grave,’ echoed Ralph, like one who talks in his sleep.

The man raised his eyes, and clasped his hands solemnly together:

‘—Was your only son, so help me God in heaven!’

In the midst of a dead silence Ralph sat down, pressing his two hands upon his temples. He removed them after a minute, and never was there seen, part of a living man undisfigured by any wound, such a ghastly face as he then disclosed.

Again, who would have supposed from the early part of _Great Expectations_ that Estella was the daughter of Abel Magwitch? {196}

In _Barnaby Rudge_, Maypole Hugh turns out to be an illegitimate son of Sir John Chester. In _The Old Curiosity Shop_, ‘The Stranger’ is found to be the brother of the Grandfather. In _Bleak House_, Esther Summerson is revealed as a daughter of Lady Dedlock. In _Our Mutual Friend_, John Rokesmith turns out to be John Harmon.

That the action of opium had a part to play in the revelation can hardly be doubted. The whole book is drenched in opium. In _The Moonstone_ the problem is who stole the jewels. It is solved by opium. The jewels are stolen by a man under the influence of opium surreptitiously administered. He is quite unconscious of what he has done, and remains unconscious. Afterwards he is discovered by a fresh administration of opium. When the opium has completely done its work the man repeats his deed, and the experiment is conclusive.

I do not think that any one reading right on would name the perpetrator of the theft, and yet when we take a backward glance we find an account of a dinner-party about the seventieth page which gives the clue. I doubt whether any one on first reading it would see in it anything that mattered, and yet it contains everything that matters. The height of art in work like this is to conceal art. You may be able at an early stage to introduce facts which contain the ultimate solution of your problem, and yet appear important enough to be stated for their own sake. The solution of the problem, or rather the materials of the solution, should be given, and yet the reader should be unable to detect the full significance of the preliminary statement till the complete clearing arrives. At the same time the book will not be satisfactory if details are superfluous, if they do nothing to carry one on to the dissipation of the mystery.

It is not to be denied that this fitting of everything into its place is at times a little wearisome. ‘The construction is most minute and most wonderful,’ wrote Anthony Trollope of Wilkie Collins. ‘I can never lose the taste of the construction. The author seems always warning me to remember that something happened at exactly half-past two on Tuesday morning, or that a woman disappeared from the road just fifteen yards beyond the fourth milestone.’ There is truth in this, but if Anthony Trollope had written a novel of mystery, which perhaps he could never have done, he would have had to take the same path.

Another doctor in _The Moonstone_ tells us that the ignorant distrust of opium in England spreads through all classes, so much so, that every doctor in large practice finds himself every now and then obliged to deceive his patients by giving them opium under a disguise. He himself claims that opium saved his life. He suffered from an incurable internal complaint, but he was determined to live in order to provide for a person very dear to him. ‘To that all-potent and all-merciful drug I am indebted for a respite of many years from my sentence of death.’

Like Collins, Dickens was keenly interested in the possibilities of opium. Collins himself was a lavish consumer of the drug, but I do not think it has been suggested that Dickens himself ever touched it. Nor is it likely, for Dickens with all his tenseness of nerve was an eminently self-controlled and temperate man. But in _Edwin Drood_ he has inserted a sentence in praise of opium. The opium woman says to Datchery: ‘It’s opium, deary. Neither more nor less. And it’s like a human creetur so far, that you always hear what can be said against it, but seldom what can be said in its praise.’ The last sentence was an afterthought on the part of Dickens. It has been written in.

As to whether Jasper was made ultimately to repeat his crime in any fashion under the influence of opium, it is impossible to say. He was unquestionably more or less under the influence of the drug when he committed it.

The literary men of Dickens’s period were much interested in the action of drugs, in mesmerism, and the like. Elliotson, to whom _Pendennis_ is dedicated, was on intimate terms with Dickens. Dickens plainly implies that Crisparkle went to the weir because Jasper willed him to do so. Collins and Dickens were both addicted to calling witnesses to their accuracy. At the close of _Armadale_, Collins says: ‘Wherever the story touches on questions connected with law, medicine, or chemistry, it has been submitted before publication to the experience of professional men. The kindness of a friend supplied me with a plan of the doctor’s apparatus—I saw the chemical ingredients at work before I ventured on describing the action of them in the closing scenes of this book.’ Every one remembers the ‘spontaneous combustion’ preface to Bleak House. I do not know whether any medical man can be found to confirm the science of _Armadale_, or of _Bleak House_, or of _The Moonstone_. But that is not the question before us. We have only to do with what the novelist himself believed to be a scientific possibility. In _Kenilworth_ {200} Wayland compounds ‘the true Orvietan, that noble medicine which is so seldom found genuine and effective within these realms of Europe.’ Scott adds a note: ‘Orvietan, or Venice treacle, as it is sometimes called, was understood to be a sovereign remedy against poison; and the reader must be contented, for the time he peruses these pages, to hold the same opinion, which was once universally received by the learned as well as the vulgar.’ Dickens’s science must be received in the same manner.

Mr. Crisparkle has one piece of evidence in his memory. ‘Long afterwards he had cause to remember’ how, when he entered Jasper’s rooms and found him asleep by the fire, the choirmaster ‘sprang from the couch in a delirious state between sleeping and waking, and crying out, “What is the matter? Who did it?”’

As we have already seen, the gathering of the threads is in the strong hands of Datchery.

As we know, Forster adds that Neville Landless was to have perished in assisting Tartar finally to unmask and seize the murderer. It will be seen that this part of his testimony is more doubtful than the rest, and cannot, therefore, be so implicitly accepted, but it may well be true. Melancholy seems to mark Neville Landless for its own, and his passion for Rosa is hopeless. If he dies, it is a heavy blow for his devoted sister, who finds her triumph marred by the death of her brother. Singularly enough, some writers who have hesitated to accept Forster’s more expressed testimony make much of the death of Neville Landless and its circumstances. It need only be pointed out that all this is pure conjecture, however ingenious it may be.

I find no difficulty in believing that Dickens carried out his plan of making Jasper give in prison a review of his own career. This has been called a poor and conventional idea, but as worked out by Dickens it would neither have been poor nor conventional. What remains to be told is, I repeat, largely the story of John Jasper’s earlier life.

THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD A BIBLIOGRAPHY COMPILED BY B. W. MATZ

THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD. By Charles Dickens. Parts 1–6. With 12 illustrations by Sir Luke Fildes, R.A. 1870.

HOW MR. SAPSEA CEASED TO BE A MEMBER OF THE EIGHT CLUB. Fragment found by John Forster. See his _Life_ of the Novelist. Added to the ‘Biographical,’ ‘National,’ and ‘Centenary’ editions of the novel.

THE CLOVEN FOOT: An Adaptation of the English Novel to American Scenes, Characters, Customs and Nomenclature. By Orpheus C. Kerr (R. H. Newell). New York: Carleton. 1870.

THE MYSTERY OF MR. E. DROOD. By Orpheus C. Kerr. An English edition of foregoing, with several minor alterations. London: _The Piccadilly Annual_. 1870.

JOHN JASPER’S SECRET: A Sequel to Charles Dickens’s Unfinished Novel, _The Mystery of Edwin Drood_. By Henry Morford, of New York, and his wife. Issued in parts in America by T. B. Peterson and Bros., Philadelphia, from October 1871 to March 1872; and in England anonymously. An edition of the same work was published in 1901 with the astoundingly false announcement on the title-page that the book is by Wilkie Collins and Charles Dickens the Younger. New York: R. F. Fenno and Co.

THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD. A Play by Walter Stephens. Performed at the Surrey Theatre, 4th November 1871. Chapman and Hall. 1871.

THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD. A drama by G. H. Macdermott. Performed at the Britannia Theatre, 22nd July 1872.

THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD COMPLETE. Part the Second. ‘By the Spirit Pen of Charles Dickens, through a Medium.’ Published at Brattleborough, Vermont, U.S.A. 1873.

THE GREAT MYSTERY SOLVED: Being a Sequel to _The Mystery of Edwin Drood_. By Gillan Vase. 3 vols. London: Remington and Co. 1878.

LE CRIME DE JASPER. Traduit de l’Anglais. Dentu. Paris: 1879.

ALIVE OR DEAD: A Drama. By Robert Hall. Performed at the Park Theatre, Camden Town, 3rd May 1880.

WATCHED BY THE DEAD: A Loving Study of Dickens’s Half-Told Tale. By Richard A. Proctor. London: W. H. Allen and Co. 1887. (The genesis of this ‘loving study’ appeared as articles in the _Belgravia Magazine_, June 1878; _Leisure Readings_, 1882; and _Knowledge_, 1884; over the pseudonym of ‘Thomas Foster.’)

HOW ‘EDWIN DROOD’ WAS ILLUSTRATED. By Alice Meynell. _Century Magazine_, February 1884.

THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD: Suggestions for a Conclusion. _Cornhill Magazine_, March 1884.

THE WELFLEET MYSTERY (An Outgrowth of Dickens’s Last Work). By Mrs. C. A. Read. _The Weekly Budget_, 1885.

A NOVELIST’S FAVOURITE THEME. _Cornhill Magazine_, January 1886.

MYSTERY ON MYSTERY. By Edward Salmon. _Belgravia_, September 1887.

THE DROOD MYSTERY AGAIN. By Robert Allbut. _Daily Union_, U.S.A. (letter dated 21st August 1893).

CLUES TO THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD. By J. Cuming Walters. London: Chapman and Hall, Ltd. 2s. 6d. 1905.

SOLVING ‘THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD.’ By B. W. Matz. _Dickensian_, July 1905.

THE MYSTERY OF DATCHERY. By William Archer. _Morning Leader_, 15th, 22nd and 29th July. Replies by J. Cuming Walters, 17th and 26th July 1905.

THE DROOD CASE. By Andrew Lang. _Morning Post_, 28th July 1905.

THE PLOT OF EDWIN DROOD. By Andrew Lang. _Academy_, 29th July 1905. Reply by J. Cuming Walters, 12th August 1905.

THE CLEARING OF A MYSTERY. By Harry Beswick. _Clarion_, 28th July 1905.

THE DROOD CASE. By J. Cuming Walters. _Morning Post_, 8th August 1905.

THE HISTORY OF A MYSTERY: A Review of the Solutions to ‘Edwin Drood.’ By George F. Gadd. _Dickensian_, September to December 1905.

INTERVIEW BETWEEN DR. WATSON AND SHERLOCK HOLMES ON THE DROOD MYSTERY. By Andrew Lang. _Longman’s Magazine_ (At the Sign of the Ship), September 1905.

THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD. By Hammond Hall. _Dickensian_, September 1905.

MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD. By H. H. F. _Academy_, 26th August. By J. Cuming Walters and Andrew Lang, 9th September 1905.

BAZZARD AND HELENA. By H. H. F. _Academy_, 9th September 1905.

DICKENS MEMORIES, WITH SOME REFLECTIONS ON THE EDWIN DROOD MYSTERY. By Percy Fitzgerald. _Daily Chronicle_, 20th September 1905.

THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD: More Opinions Regarding the Identity of Datchery. By Dr. Blake Odgers, J. Cuming Walters, Willoughby Matchett and A. Bawtree. _Daily Chronicle_, 23rd September 1905.

EDWIN DROOD MYSTERY. By J. Cuming Walters. _Daily Chronicle_, 27th September 1905.

THE PUZZLE OF DICKENS’S LAST PLOT. By Andrew Lang. London: Chapman and Hall, Ltd. 2s. 6d. net. 1905.

A DICKENS MYSTERY: Mr. Andrew Lang’s Adventures with Edwin Drood. By J. Cuming Walters. _Daily Chronicle_, 14th October 1905.

THE MYSTERIES OF EDWIN DROOD. _Times_, 27th October. Letters on the same by Sir Luke Fildes, R.A., 3rd November (reprinted in _Dickensian_, December 1905); Andrew Lang, 10th November 1905; and J. W. T. Ley, 21st November 1905.

EDWIN DROOD AGAIN. By J. Cuming Walters. _Academy_, 28th October 1905.

MR. LANG THE DISENTANGLER. By Walter Herries Pollock. _Evening Standard_, 30th October 1905.

MR. LANG DETECTING AGAIN. By G. K. Chesterton. _Daily News_, 2nd November 1905.

EDWIN DROOD: Solutions to the Mystery. By Henry Smetham. _Rochester and Chatham Journal_, 18th November 1905. (Reprinted in pamphlet form for private circulation.)

THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD. By E. J. S. _The Star_, 25th November 1905.

THE LITERARY CORRESPONDENCE OF EDWARD HONEY CONCERNING THE FATE OF EDWIN DROOD. _The Scottish Review_, 30th November 1905.

MR. LUKE FILDES, THE ‘DROOD’ MYSTERY, AND MR. LANG. By J. Cuming Walters. _Dickensian_, December 1905.

EDWIN DROOD, DEAD OR ALIVE. By J. Cuming Walters. _Westminster Gazette_, 23rd December 1905.

DATCHERY THE ENIGMA: The Case for Tartar. By George F. Gadd. _Dickensian_, January 1906.

EDWIN DROOD. By Andrew Lang. _Westminster Gazette_, 15th January 1906.

THE EDWIN DROOD SYNDICATE. _The Cambridge Review_, Nos. 668–673, 1906.

THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD. By the Rev. Wilfrid Lescher, O.P. _Catholic Times_, 9th February 1906.

THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD. By A. M. P. _The L.C.C. Staff Gazette_, April 1906.

LYTTON’S ‘JOHN ACLAND.’ By J. Cuming Walters. _Athenæum_, 14th April 1906.

EDWIN DROOD AND DICKENS’S LAST DAYS. By Kate Perugini (Dickens’s daughter). (Illus.) _Pall Mall Magazine_, June 1906.

MRS. PERUGINI AND EDWIN DROOD. By Andrew Lang. _Times_, 1st June 1906.

THE DISSECTION OF DROOD. By J. Meredith Bird. _Pall Mall Gazette_, 11th June 1906.

MR. DATCHERY. By Willoughby Matchett. _Dickensian_, January 1907.

THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD. Interview with Mr. H. Beerbohm Tree and Mr. J. Comyns Carr. By Raymond Blathwayt. _Cardiff_, _South Wales Daily News_, 14th November 1907.

THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD: A Drama in Four Acts. By J. Comyns Carr. Performed at His Majesty’s Theatre, 4th January 1908. (First played at Cardiff, November 1907.)

EDWIN DROOD. Criticism of Mr. Comyn Carr’s play by J. Cuming Walters. _Daily Chronicle_, 1st January 1908.

KEYS TO THE DROOD MYSTERY. By Edwin Charles. (Illus.) London: Collier and Co. 1s. net. 1908.

A CHAT WITH MR. TREE. _Daily Telegraph_, 2nd January 1908.

THE REAL EDWIN DROOD. By Haldane Macfall. _Daily Chronicle_, 8th January 1908.

THE SECRET OF EDWIN DROOD. Interview with Mr. Comyns Carr. _Daily Chronicle_, 9th January 1908.

THE DROOD MYSTERY. Mr. Hall Caine’s reply to Mr. Tree. _Daily Chronicle_, 14th January 1908.

THE GREAT DROOD CASE. By Andrew Lang. _Morning Post_, 24th January 1908.

THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD. By T. P. _P.T.O._, 25th January 1908.

EDWIN DROOD AT HIS MAJESTY’S THEATRE. By J. W. T. Ley. _Dickensian_, February 1908.

THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD: Its ‘Completions’ and ‘Solutions.’ By B. W. Matz. _The Bookshelf_, February 1908.

EDWIN DROOD: A Theory. By Albert F. Fessenden. Boston (U.S.A.) _Evening Transcript_, 7th and 29th February, 7th, 14th, and 21st March 1908.

DESULTORY THOUGHTS ON DROOD. By J. Cuming Walters. _Dickensian_, March 1908.

THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD. By B. W. Matz. (Illus.) _Bookman_, March 1908.

THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD: A Drama. By C. A. Clarke and S. B. Rogerson. Osborne Theatre, Manchester, March 1908. See _Stage_, 5th March 1908.

THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD. With Illustrations. By W. _Manchester City News_, 10th March 1908.

LAST WORDS ON THE DROOD MYSTERY. By various writers. _Dickensian_, April 1908.

ARE THE DROODISTS ALL AT SEA? By W. Teignmouth Shore. _T. P.’s Weekly_, 21st August 1908.

THOUGHTS ON THE DROOD MYSTERY. By Henry Leffmann, A.M., M.D. _About Dickens_ (a privately printed volume). Philadelphia. 1908.

DICKENS AND THE DRAMA (chapter devoted to Plays on Edwin Drood). By S. J. Adair FitzGerald. London: Chapman and Hall, Ltd. 5s. net. 1910.

ABOUT ‘EDWIN DROOD.’ By H. J. Cambridge University Press. 4s. net. 1911.

DROOD AND DATCHERY. By J. Cuming Walters. _Dickensian_, March 1911.

ABOUT ‘EDWIN DROOD.’ Reviews by Andrew Lang, _Morning Post_, 24th February, and _Illustrated London News_, 4th March; by B. W. Matz in _Daily Chronicle_, 24th February; by ‘M. R. J.’ in _Cambridge Review_, 9th March; by C. K. S. in _The Sphere_, 11th March; _Athenæum_, 1st April 1911; _The Author_, April 1911.

THE DROOD MYSTERY SOLVED. By J. Cuming Walters. _T. P.’s Weekly_, 3rd and 24th March 1911.

MR. CUMING WALTERS ON ‘EDWIN DROOD.’ By Andrew Lang. _T. P.’s Weekly_, 17th and 31st March 1911.

THE CLAIMS OF BAZZARD. _Birmingham Daily Post_, 11th March 1911.

MYSTERY À LA AMERICO-PARISIENNE. By Andrew Lang. _Morning Post_, 10th March 1911.

CRITICISMS AND APPRECIATIONS OF CHARLES DICKENS’S WORKS. By G. K. Chesterton. London: J. M. Dent and Co. 7s. 6d. net. 1911.

ABOUT EDWIN DROOD. By Andrew Lang. _Dickensian_, April 1911.

DROOD AND DATCHERY. By Wilkins Micawber, Junr. _Dickensian_, April 1911.

DROP IT. By J. Cuming Walters. _Dickensian_, May 1911.

EDWIN DROOD AND SOME QUERIES. By A. B. Stedman. _Dickensian_, May 1911.

THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD. By Andrew Lang. _Blackwood’s Magazine_, May 1911.

PHASES OF DICKENS (chapter on His Last Mystery). By J. Cuming Walters. London: Chapman and Hall, Ltd. 5s. net. 1911.

DICKENS AND HIS LAST BOOK: A New Theory. By S. Y. E. _Nottingham Guardian_, 9th January 1912.

EDWIN DROOD RE-EXAMINED. By ‘K.’ _The Eye-Witness_, 18th and 25th January, 1st and 8th February 1912.

THE DROOD MYSTERY. By J. Cuming Walters. _The Eye-Witness_, 22nd February, 7th and 14th March 1912.

DROOD AND DATCHERY. By ‘K.’ _The Eye-Witness_, 29th February 1912.

IN DICKENS STREET (chapter entitled A Dickens Mystery). By W. R. Thomson. London: Chapman and Hall, Ltd. 3s. 6d. net. 1912.

THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD. By Dr. J. B. Hellier. _British Weekly_, 4th April 1912.

THE DROOD DEBATE IN BIRMINGHAM. By J. Cuming Walters and Willoughby Matchett. _Dickensian_, June 1912.

ANDREW LANG AND DICKENS’S PUZZLE. By J. Cuming Walters. _Dickensian_, September 1912.

THE DROOD MYSTERY: Extracts from an Unpublished Article by Andrew Lang. By Arthur Eckersley. _Book Monthly_, September 1912.

INDEX

_A Tale of Two Cities_, 71, 83, 88, 92.

_Abbot_, _The_, 137.

_About Edwin Drood_, x, 56, 80.

_Academy_, _The_, xi.

_Anne of Geierstein_, 185.

Archer, William, 119, 178.

_Armadale_, 200.

_As You like It_, 180.

_Athenæum_, ix, xviii.

* * * * *

BANCROFT, LADY, 165–6.

Bancroft Recollections, xii, 165.

_Barnaby Rudge_, 83, 89, 93, 95, 103, 117, 190, 196.

_Berliner Tageblatt_, 146.

_Blackwood_, 113, 122, 127.

_Bleak House_, xviii, 73, 83, 196, 200.

_Bookman_, xi.

Boothby, Guy, 165, 170.

Boucicault, Dion, 44.

Brewster, Sir David, 162.

* * * * *

_Cambridge Review_, xi, 77, 122, 164.

_Castle Dangerous_, 185.

Cattermole, Mr., 103.

Chapman and Hall, xiv.

Chappell, Messrs., 21.

Charles, Edwin, 129–30.

_Clues to Dickens’s Mystery of Edwin Drood_, ix, 149.

Collins, Charles Allston, 20, 27, 39, 41, 54, 70, 73, 75, 90, 111, 127–8.

Collins, Wilkie, 141, 149, 170, 193; collaboration with Dickens, 90; Dickens praises _No Name_, 91; letter from Dickens, 92; collaborates in _No Thoroughfare_, 124; influence on Dickens, 166; _The Moonstone_, 193; criticised by Anthony Trollope, 198; interested in effects of opium, 199–200.

_Count Robert of Paris_, 165, 185.

* * * * *

_Daily Mail_, 160.

_David Copperfield_, 83.

_Dickens_, _Life of Charles_, 20, 36, 165.

Dickens, the younger, Charles, xii, 20, 35, 43, 70, 110–11.

_Dombey and Son_, 71.

* * * * *

_Edinburgh Review_, 104–5, 151.

_Edwin Drood_, ix, xii, xvii-xviii, 3, 20, 83, 117, 165; Forster on how it was written, 22–8; Madame Perugini’s testimony, 28–41; the cover, 40, 54, 69, 71–81, 111; the play, 44; plans for novel, 57–68; compared with _No Thoroughfare_, 124.

Eick, Dr. Hugo, 146, 180.

Elliotson, 199.

* * * * *

FILDES, SIR LUKE, 20, 26, 41, 44, 46, 53–4, 70, 73, 77, 111–12, 128.

Forster, John, 3, 4, 20, 28–42, 53, 103, 202; on _Edwin __Drood_, 22–8; on Drood being murdered, 109–10.

* * * * *

GADD, MR. G. F. xi, 182.

Garrick, David, 163.

Garrick, Mrs., 164.

Gladstone, xv.

Graeme, Miss Stirling, 159.

_Great Expectations_, xviii, 83, 88, 196.

* * * * *

HATTON, MISS BESSIE, xii, 20.

Hatton, Joseph, xii, 20, 43–4, 111.

Hogarth, Miss, 42.

Homer, xv.

_Household Words_, 105, 115.

_Hunted Down_, 114.

* * * * *

INGRAM, MR. J. H., xiv, 95.

Irving, Mr. H. B., 80.

* * * * *

JACKSON, MR. HARRY, 44.

Jackson, Professor Henry, x, 56, 78, 113, 173–4, 186, 194; his reading of the cover of _Edwin Drood_, 72–5; how Edwin was murdered, 131–40; chronology of the chapters, 171; on Bazzard, 180; the Tartar-Datchery theory, 182.

James, Dr. M. R., xi, 73, 129; his interpretation of the cover of _Edwin Drood_, 77–8; was Edwin murdered?, 121–2; on Datchery, 164; the Bazzard-Datchery theory, 179.

Journal of Sir Walter Scott, The, 164, 184–5.

* * * * *

_Kenilworth_, 191, 200.

* * * * *

LANG, MR. ANDREW, x, 73, 113, 130, 139, 163–4, 170, 178, 185, 193; on the cover of _Edwin Drood_, 70, 75–7, 80, 127–8; his theory of the murder of Edwin, 120–3, 132; the Datchery-Neville theory, 181.

_Leisure Readings_, ix, 118.

_Little Dorrit_, 71, 87, 104–5, 190.

* * * * *

_Macbeth_, 129–30.

_Martin Chuzzlewit_, 25, 71.

_Master Humphrey’s Clock_, 95.

Matz, Mr. B. W., xii, xiv, 71.

Millais, Sir John, 26.

_Moonstone_, _The_, 90, 92, 167, 193, 197–8, 200.

_Morning Leader_, 119.

_Morning Post_, 72, 130.

_Mystifications_, 159.

* * * * *

_Nickleby_, _Nicholas_, 195.

_No Name_, xii, 90, 92, 167.

_No Thoroughfare_, 90, 124.

* * * * *

ODGERS, DR. BLAKE, 177.

_Old Curiosity Shop_, _The_, 196.

_Oliver Twist_, 21, 25, 71, 195.

_Our Mutual Friend_, xviii, 25, 72, 83, 86, 179, 196.

* * * * *

_Pall Mall Magazine_, 28.

_Pendennis_, 199.

_People_, _The_, 43.

Perugini, Madame, 20, 28, 43, 70, 109–11, 127–8.

Philadelphia _Saturday Evening Post_, 94, 100.

_Phineas Finn_, 172.

_Pickwick_, 71.

Poe, Edgar Allan, xiv, 93–103, 190.

Proctor, Mr. R. A., ix, x, 118, 164; on the cover of Edwin Drood, 74, 77; was Drood murdered?, 114, 120, 131–2; the Bazzard-Datchery theory, 179.

_Puzzle of Dickens’s Last Plot_, _The_, x, 75, 139.

* * * * *

_Recollections and Impressions_, 162.

Rosebery, Lord, xiii.

* * * * *

SCOTT, SIR WALTER, 159, 163, 184, 200.

Sellar, Mrs., 162.

Shakespeare, 180.

Shorter, Mr. Clement, xiv.

Skene, Mr., 185.

_Sketches by Boz_, 71.

_Spectator_, _The_, 69.

Stoddart, Miss J. T., xiv, 133, 139, 194.

Stone, R.A., Mr. Marcus, 72.

_Studies in Prose and Poetry_, 92, 104.

Swinburne, Mr., 91, 104.

* * * * *

THACKERAY, 23.

Thomson, Mr. Hugh, xii, 73, 78, 128.

_Times_, _The_, 53, 127.

Trollope, Anthony, 198.

_Two Gentlemen of Verona_, _The_, 180.

* * * * *

VASE, GILLAN, xi, 123.

* * * * *

WALTERS, MR. CUMING, ix, x, xvii, 73, 123, 193; on the cover of _Edwin Drood_, 80; how Edwin was murdered, 132; Helena as Datchery, 149, 158; the Bazzard-Datchery theory, 179.

_Watched by the Dead_, ix.

Whitty, Mr. J. H., 95.

Willard, Mr., 45.

_Woman in White_, _The_, 90, 92, 167.

NOTES.

{63} This was originally marked IX.

{67a} Scored out in Dickens’s MS.

{67b} Scored out in Dickens’s MS.

{67c} Scored out in Dickens’s MS.

{67d} Scored out in Dickens’s MS.

{90} Charles Dickens as Editor, p. 386.

{91} Letters of Charles Dickens to Wilkie Collins, p. 123.

{92a} _Studies in Prose and Poetry_.

{92b} _Letters of Charles Dickens to Wilkie Collins_, p. 103.

{104} It was known to that thorough scholar, Mr. Swinburne. See _Studies in Prose and Poetry_, p. 114.

{113} _Blackwood_, May 1911, p. 672.

{119} _Morning Leader_, 15th July 1905.

{122} _Cambridge Review_, 9th March 1911.

{127} 1st June 1906.

{130} 24th February 1911.

{139} _The Puzzle of Dickens’s Last Plot_, p. 10.

{163} _Recollections and Impressions_, by E. M. Sellar, p. 64.

{164a} _Journal of Sir Walter Scott_, vol. ii. p. 422.

{164b} _Cambridge Review_, 9th March 1911.

{184} _Sir Walter Scott’s Journal_, vol. ii. p. 131.

{185} _Sir Walter Scott’s Journal_, vol. ii. p. 236.

{196} The following may be quoted from _Pickwick_:

‘“Dismal Jenny?” inquired Jingle.

‘“Yes.”

‘Jingle shook his head.

‘“Clever rascal—queer fellow, hoaxing genius—Job’s brother.”

‘“Job’s brother!” exclaimed Mr. Pickwick. “Well, now I look at him closely, there is a likeness.”’

{200} Chapter xiii.