The Mystery of Edwin Drood
Chapman & Hall, 1870.
First edition. Adverts dated May 1872. Bound by Lewis & Harris of Bath in half red morocco over red cloth with raised bands and gilt titles and decoration to spine. Top edge gilt. Frontispiece portrait of Dickens and twelve full page illustrations by S.L. Fildes. A very good copy indeed, with small stains to the margins of the plates facing pages 157, 173 and 183. A touch of fading to the spine.
Dickens began the writing of what would be his final novel in the summer of 1869. It would appear that the work gave the author more trouble than any of his former novels and he revised and corrected his work continually, sometimes entirely remodelling sections. The first monthly part was issued in April 1870, but at the time Dickens was suffering periodically from a local haemorrhage and trouble in his foot in between bouts of comparative good health. On 8 June 1870 Dickens's final and fatal seizure came and he passed away peacefully on the following day.
Longfellow, on hearing of Dickens's death wrote to Forster expressing a hope that Drood was finished,
"It is certainly one of his most beautiful works, if not the most beautiful of all, It would be too sad to think the pen had fallen from his hand, and left it incomplete!"
Stock ID: 44805
