Aside from A Christmas Carol (which I try to read every year at Christmas) and A Tale of Two Cities (which I’ve read twice), this is the only other “full” Dickens book I ever read (excluding other short stories).
For those who don’t know, The Mystery of Edwin Drood holds a unique place in literature. I believe it’s the only whodunnit that doesn’t have a ‘whodunnit’ reveal, because Dickens had a stroke in the middle of writing it. Literally in the middle – twelve parts were planned, six had been published. He left no notes on the last six installments and just died in the middle, and the general public has been trying to solve the mystery of Drood’s disappearance for 152 years. It was pretty selfish of him to die in the middle of the story but that’s how it goes sometimes 😉
Anyway, the novel follows the teenage orphan Edwin Drood (imagine!) as he goes about his business, which is to say, he hangs out with his betrothed, he visits his uncle, he makes plans for his future (going to Egypt to work as an engineer where his father had been a partner). Unfortunately for Edwin, he and his fiancé like each other but fight a lot, his uncle is an opium addict who (in addition to hanging out in opium dens, also likes to hang out in crypts) may wish to cause him harm, and his future is left in question when he disappears under mysterious circumstances.
There are other supporting characters and other mysteries as well – why was Princess Puffer following and cursing John Jasper (Drood’s uncle)? How do the Landlesses fit in? Who is Dick Datchery?
As I said, Dickens’ death leaves the work unfinished, with subsequent generations of readers trying to crack the mystery of Edwin Drood. Was Drood murdered by his uncle? Or was he going to triumphantly return, wealthy and successful from Egypt?
While there are no known notes or clues to how Dickens was going officially end the story, certain clues do point in the direction of John Jasper murdering his nephew. First, there are the out of story clues:
1. Dickens wrote a letter to his friend/biographer John Forster outlining the plot (although not the murder) and describing the story as the murder of a nephew by his uncle.
2. The story’s original illustrator was told to include a certain scarf in one of his illustrations because Jasper was to strangle Drood with it.
3. Dickens’ son was told unequivocally by his father that Jasper was the murderer.
Even before reading up on the unfinished story, the text also provides a lot of clues, which I won’t spoil here, because the mystery is still fun, even after a century and a half.
As always, Dickens character names are some of the most memorable you’ll ever come across.
I actually loved this story, even though it was unfinished, and no Dickens fan should skip it.
Tag Archives: authors: charles dickens
The Mystery of Edwin Drood
A Christmas Carol
I started watching A Christmas Carol with my mom when I was a little girl, and we still watch it every Christmas, although maybe not together. We watch the 1951 version with Alastair Sim as Scrooge. All other versions are wrong/inferior, except for the Muppet version, which is the second best version and also acceptable, because Muppets. That the Alastair Sim version of the film is the best version is one of the pettiest hills I’m willing to die on.
It wasn’t until I was older that I actually read the story. I try to read it most Christmases now, but don’t always succeed. I did in 2018, though. I’m not going to bother recapping it, as it’s a very popular/well known story, but I recommend everyone read it even if they don’t celebrate Christmas, rather than just watch the film. Or listen to the audiobook, that’s fun too., I’ve found that reading Dickens is a joy as long as you aren’t in school. Yes, he is quite wordy, but that is part of what makes it fun. His language is magic all its own.
As with many books gone Hollywood, reading the book is different than the film. I quite enjoyed the book, and it gave me one of my favorite opening lines ever:
Marley was dead: to begin with.
Come on! That’s great!
There are some other really famous lines too, which I love quoting at people who don’t necessarily know what I’m talking about (because I, too, can be a smug asshole). “Are there no prisons!? Are there no workhouses!?”
I also like the end, that Scrooge learns to “keep Christmas in his heart.” The entire thing is beautifully written in a way only Dickens ever seemed to master.
There’s also a lot of history surrounding A Christmas Carol (as there is around a lot of Dickens’ stories) and I find it particularly enjoyable for some reason, possibly because I connect it with the happy Christmases and nostalgia of when I was young, possibly because it’s just very interesting, and possibly just because it’s good. Is there a better story that embodies the spirit of Christmas?
The Victorians more or less developed the celebrations and traditions of modern Christmas. From caroling to Christmas trees, if you’re familiar with it, they developed it or popularized it. Maybe that’s a little broad, but it is generally accurate. The story is considered a zeitgeist of the Victorian age which I heard somewhere but also read on Wikipedia later so maybe that was stolen?
The legacy of the story is one that still touches us today. In the west, we frequently “do” Dickens’ vision of Christmas – we visit friends and family, give to the poor, sing songs, have dances, play games, have a special meal and take a day off from work. We’re more optimistic and more generous than we usually are. We “keep Christmas” the way Dickens’ Scrooge kept Christmas.
I’m sure not everyone loves the story as much as I do, and the actual realities of life at the time clash with the optimism of the story. But I firmly think this is a story that should be read by everyone for the language, lasting legacy, and cultural currency.
Mr. Dickens and His Carol
One of my favorite stories ever is A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens, and Dickens gets a lot of credit for “inventing” Christmas with that story. His tale of a crotchety, miserly old man visited by three ghosts of Christmas whose teachings grow his heart three sizes warms my heart every Christmas. I make it a point to read/listen to A Christmas Carol each year, and each year I watch the movie with my mom. The best version is the black and white version with Alastair Sim as Ebenezer Scrooge.
Samantha Silva’s Mr. Dickens and His Carol is one of a series of tellings about Dickens writing his famous Christmas story that have arrived on the scene in the last few years.
The premise: Dickens, his latest novel (Martin Chuzzlewit) a flop with critics turning against him, is blackmailed by his publishers into writing a Christmas story to save them all from financial ruin. This includes Dickens himself, whose growing family and social circle is becoming more and more unruly, with his wife planning a large Christmas party for just about everyone they know. With a nasty bout of writers’ block and an approaching deadline coming up fast, Dickens meets a muse named Eleanor Lovejoy, who sends Dickens on a Scrooge-like journey of his own, testing his beliefs in generosity, friendship, and love.
The story he writes changes the way the world looks at Christmas.
A little history: this era in England – the Victorian era – was the time when celebrating the Christmas season was becoming a big deal. Queen Victoria and Prince Albert popularized the Christmas tree in Britain, and carols had experienced a revival. Other Christmas stories had proven successful, so it isn’t unbelievable that Dickens’s publishers would coerce him into writing one.
I loved this book. I thought it would be sappy and over sentimental but it wasn’t. I liked that Dickens was a grumpy old man and that he bah humbug’d it a couple of times. I liked that his relationship with Eleanor was more that of friendship than dirty old man, which was what I was expecting. I don’t know why I was expecting this, but I was wrong and was happy about it.
A Christmas Carol was supposedly written in a frenzied six weeks, with much of the work composed in Dickens’s head as he took long nighttime walks around London (some accounts say as many as 15-20 miles) and I felt Silva did a particularly good job conveying this time crunch in the book. Writing the whole thing in six weeks required a lot of frenzied periods of activity, and I felt that here.
Dickens put an emphasis on a humanitarian side of the season, and that was felt here too, showing Dickens influences due to his relationships with his family, friends, and fans.
And of course, there was a happy ending.
Mr. Dickens and His Carol is a must read for anyone who loves Dickens, A Christmas Carol, and the spirit of the holiday.
A Tale of Two Cities
I’ve read Charles Dickens’s A Tale of Two Cities before. In high school, sophomore year.
This would be an excellent example of a teacher you have destroying a book you read.
A Tale of Two Cities is not a book that you look to for statements about the objectification of women. It’s not a book where you talk about how the hero of the story is secretly selfish because he hopes, one day, to be remembered.
A Tale of Two Cities is a book where you talk about the redemption of human beings, and love, and symbolism, and fabulous prose. It’s a book where heroes are heroes and villains are deliciously evil.
It’s a book where, if you’re reading it in high school with an English teacher who sells herself as an intellectual but pedals pseudo-intellectual bullshit, you ignore everything your English teacher has to say and just enjoy the story.
There is something to the criticism that the characters here are a bit flat; Lucie is loving and supporting and never changes and it’s borderline cringeworthy in spots. The Marquis is evil and unabashedly enjoys it. The most developed character is easily Sydney Carton.
I love Sydney Carton. I didn’t know it in the 10th grade, but I knew this time through, that he was suffering from depression and self-medicating with alcohol, and he let his law partner get the credit for his true legal brilliance because, basically, he just didn’t care. He was selfless, and smart, and I adored him.
There was only one, gaping plot hole in this book that I either didn’t hear because I missed it while I was simultaneously doing something else, like driving (entirely possible), or because there was just one, gaping plot hole that was never explained:
How did Carton know to show up in Paris? After reading the plot summary, I guess it’s because the family was gone from London for so long? Anyway, if anyone knows for sure, I’d be glad to hear it.
If you hated A Tale of Two Cities in high school, I highly suggest revisiting it, particularly as an audiobook. It’s still wordy AF. It can still be a bit slow in spots. But I appreciated it so much more this time. In contrast to my newfound warmer feelings for Sydney Carton, were my much stronger repulsive feeling to Madame Defarge. I somehow missed the first time through exactly how evil she was. She’s great to hate. And I hated her so much more this time.
Dickens has his reputation as one of the greatest writers the English language has ever produced, and I get it. I get it now. I hope you give yourself the chance to get it, too.
words in scarlet ink 