Title: The Problem of 'Edwin Drood': A Study in the Methods of Dickens
Author: Sir W. Robertson Nicoll
Release date: June 3, 2011 [eBook #36311]
Language: English
Credits: This ebook was transcribed by Les Bowler
This ebook was transcribed by Les Bowler.
A STUDY IN THE METHODS OF
DICKENS
BY
W. ROBERTSON NICOLL
HODDER AND STOUGHTON
LONDON NEW YORK
TORONTO
TO THE RIGHT
HONOURABLE
THE EARL OF ROSEBERY
K.G.
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PAGE |
PREFACE |
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INTRODUCTION |
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PART I.—THE MATERIALS FOR A SOLUTION |
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CHAPTER I |
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THE TEXT OF ‘EDWIN DROOD’ |
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CHAPTER II |
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EXTERNAL TESTIMONIES |
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NOTES FOR THE NOVEL |
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CHAPTER III |
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THE ILLUSTRATIONS ON THE WRAPPER |
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CHAPTER IV |
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THE METHODS OF DICKENS |
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CHAPTER V |
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WAS EDWIN DROOD MURDERED? |
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CHAPTER VI |
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WHO WAS DATCHERY? |
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CHAPTER VII |
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OTHER THEORIES |
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CHAPTER VIII |
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HOW WAS ‘EDWIN DROOD’ TO END? |
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BIBLIOGRAPHY |
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The first serious discussion of The Mystery of Edwin Drood came from the pen of the astronomer, Mr. R. A. Proctor. Mr. Proctor wrote various essays on the subject. One appears in his Leisure Readings, included in Messrs. Longmans’ ‘Silver Library.’ A second was published in 1887, and entitled Watched by the Dead. There were, I believe, in addition some periodical articles by Mr. Proctor; these I have not seen. Mr. Proctor modified certain positions in his earlier essay included in Leisure Readings, so that the paper must not be taken as representative of his final views. Whatever may be thought of Mr. Proctor’s theory, all will admit that he devoted much care and ingenuity to the study, and that he had an exceptional knowledge of Dickens’s books.
In 1905 Mr. Cuming Walters published his Clues to Dickens’s Mystery of Edwin Drood. The Athenæum expressed its conviction ‘that in these hundred pages or so he has found the clue, the main secret which had baffled all previous investigators, and so has secured permanent association with one of the immortals.’ Mr. Cuming Walters’s book was immediately followed by Mr. Andrew Lang’s The Puzzle of Dickens’s Last Plot. In this Mr. Lang adopted with modifications the theory of Mr. Proctor. The subject continued to interest this lamented author to the end of his life. He wrote many letters and articles on the theme, coming ultimately to the conclusion that Dickens did not know himself how his story was to be ended.
In 1910 Professor Henry Jackson of Cambridge published a volume, About Edwin Drood. It is a work of sterling merit, and particularly valuable for its study of the chronology of the story. Dr. Jackson was the first to examine the manuscript in a scholarly way, and to give some of the chief results. His conclusions are in the main those of Mr. Cuming Walters, but they are supported by fresh arguments and criticisms.
There have been many articles on the subject, particularly in that excellent periodical, the Dickensian, edited by Mr. B. W. Matz. Of this magazine it may be said that every number adds something to our knowledge of the great author.
By far the most successful attempt to finish the book is that of Gillan Vase, which was published in 1878. It is the only continuation worth looking at.
Among the best of the periodical contributions are those by Dr. M. R. James of Cambridge, published in the Academy, and in the Cambridge Review. The papers of Mr. G. F. Gadd in the Dickensian deserve special praise. In the Bookman Mr. B. W. Matz, whose knowledge of Dickens is unsurpassed, has declared for the view that Edwin Drood was murdered, but has not committed himself to any theory of Datchery.
I should not have been justified in publishing this volume if I had been able to add no new material. But I venture to think it will be found that while I have freely used the arguments and the discoveries of previous investigators, I have made a considerable addition to the stores. In particular, I have brought out the fact that Forster declined to accept Dickens’s erasures in the later proofs, and I have printed the passages which Dickens meant to have omitted. The effect of the omissions is also traced to a certain extent, though not fully. The more one studies them, the more significant they appear.
I have printed completely for the first time the Notes and Plans for the novel. I have also published some notes on the manuscript based on a careful examination. These notes are not by any means complete, but they include perhaps the more important facts. Through the kindness of Miss Bessie Hatton and Mr. B. W. Matz I have been able to give an account of the unacted play by Charles Dickens the younger and Joseph Hatton on Edwin Drood.
I have also put together for the first time the external evidence on the subject. It is particularly important that this evidence should be read in full, and much of it is now inaccessible to the general reader. In the discussion of the main problems it will, I believe, be found that certain new arguments have been brought forward. In particular I ask attention to the quotations from the Bancroft Memoirs and from No Name. I have also given certain studies of the methods of Dickens which may be useful.
I have to acknowledge with warm thanks the kindness of Mr. Hugh Thomson in sending me his reading of the Wrapper.
It will thus, I hope, be found that the study is a contribution to the subject, and not a mere repetition or paraphrase of what has been advanced.
I have made no attempt at summarising the novel. No one can possibly attack the problem with any hope of success who has not read the book over and over again. A hasty perusal will serve no purpose. The fragment deserves and repays the very closest study.
There are questions that have been raised and arguments that have been stated which are not mentioned here. This is not because of ignorance. I have read, I believe, practically all that has been published on the theme. What I have omitted is matter that seems to me trivial or irrelevant.
While fully believing in the accuracy of the conclusions I have reached, I desire to avoid dogmatism. There is always the possibility that a writer may be diverted from his purpose. He may come to difficulties he cannot surmount. The fact that scholarly students of Dickens have come to different conclusions is a fact to be taken into account.
My thanks are due to Lord Rosebery for kindly accepting the dedication of the volume. Lord Rosebery is, however, in no way responsible for my arguments or my conclusions.
In preparing this study I have had the constant assistance and counsel of my accomplished colleague, Miss Jane T. Stoddart. Miss Stoddart’s accuracy and learning and acuteness have been of the greatest use to me, and there is scarcely a chapter in the volume which does not owe much to her.
Mr. J. H. Ingram has most kindly furnished me with information about Poe.
Mr. Clement Shorter has allowed me to use his very valuable collection of newspaper articles.
Mr. B. W. Matz has very courteously answered some inquiries, and he has permitted me to use his valuable bibliography.
Messrs. Chapman & Hall have kindly given me permission to use the Wrapper, etc.
Mr. Cuming Walters has been so kind as to read the proofs.
If there are those who think that the problem does not deserve consideration, I am not careful to answer them. It is a problem which will be discussed as long as Dickens is read. Those who believe that Dickens is the greatest humorist and one of the greatest novelists in English literature, are proud to make any contribution, however insignificant, to the understanding of his works. Mr. Gladstone, in his ‘Essay on the Place of Homer in Education,’ mentions the tradition of Dorotheus, who spent the whole of his life in endeavouring to elucidate the meaning of a single word in Homer. Without fully justifying this use of time, we may agree in Mr. Gladstone’s general conclusion ‘that no exertion spent upon any of the classics of the world, and attended with any amount of real result, is thrown away.’
Bay Tree Lodge, Hampstead,
Sept. 1912.
The three mysteries of Edwin Drood are thus stated by Mr. Cuming Walters:
‘The first mystery, partly solved by Dickens himself, is the fate of Edwin Drood. Was he murdered?—if so, how and by whom, and where was his body hidden? If not, how did he escape, and what became of him, and did he reappear?
‘The second mystery is—Who was Mr. Datchery, the “stranger who appeared in Cloisterham” after Drood’s disappearance?
‘The third mystery is—Who was the old opium woman, called the Princess Puffer, and why did she pursue John Jasper?’
It is with the first two of these mysteries that this book is concerned. In the concluding chapter some hints are offered as to the third, but in my opinion there are no sufficient materials for any definite answer.
The problem before us is to decide with one half of Dickens’s book in our possession what the course of the other half was likely to be.
It is important to lay stress upon this. An able reviewer in the Athenæum, 1st April 1911, says: ‘The book is still in its infancy. Its predecessor, Our Mutual Friend, attained to some sixty-seven chapters, Great Expectations to fifty-nine, Bleak House to sixty-six. There is no strain on probability in supposing that Edwin Drood might, in happier circumstances, have reached something like these proportions.’ The fact is that the book was to be completed in twelve numbers, and we have six.
In the first part of this volume I have dealt with the materials for a solution.
In the second part, I have used the materials and the internal evidence of the book, and attempted an answer to the questions.
The materials for the solution of the ‘Edwin Drood’ problems must first of all be found in the text of the unfinished volume. Hitherto it has not been observed that the book we have is not precisely what it was when Dickens left it. Three parts had been issued by Dickens himself. After his death the remaining three parts were issued by John Forster. Dickens had corrected his proofs up to and including chapter xxi. The succeeding chapters xxii. and xxiii. are untouched. I discovered to my great surprise on examining the proofs in the Forster Collection that Forster had in every case ignored Dickens’s erasures, and had replaced all the omitted passages in the text. Thus it happens that we do not read the book as Dickens intended us to read it. We have passages which on consideration he decided not to print. It is unnecessary to criticise the action of Forster, but it seems clear that he should at least have given warning to the reader. I now print the passages erased by Dickens and restored by Forster.
In Chapter xvii.:—
an eminent public character, once known to fame as Frosty faced Fogo,
by, always, as it seemed, on errands of antagonistically snatching something from somebody, and never giving anything to anybody.
‘Sir,’ said Mr. Honeythunder, in his tremendous voice, like a schoolmaster issuing orders to a boy of whom he had a bad opinion, ‘sit down.’
Mr. Crisparkle seated himself.
Mr. Honeythunder having signed the remaining few score of a few thousand circulars, calling upon a corresponding number of families without means to come forward, stump up instantly, and be Philanthropists, or go to the Devil, another shabby stipendiary Philanthropist (highly disinterested, if in earnest) gathered these into a basket and walked off with them.
Mr. Crisparkle rose; a little heated in the face, but with perfect command of himself.
‘Mr. Honeythunder,’ he said, taking up the papers referred to: ‘my being better or worse employed than I am at present is a matter of taste and opinion. You might think me better employed in enrolling myself a member of your Society.’
‘Ay, indeed, sir!’ retorted Mr. Honeythunder, shaking his head in a threatening manner. ‘It would have been better for you if you had done that long ago!’
‘I think otherwise.’
‘Or,’ said Mr. Honeythunder, shaking his head again, ‘I might think one of your profession better employed in devoting himself to the discovery and punishment of guilt than in leaving that duty to be undertaken by a layman.’
‘Perhaps I expect to retain it still?’ Mr. Crisparkle returned, enlightened; ‘do you mean that too?’
‘Well, sir,’ returned the professional Philanthropist, getting up and thrusting his hands down into his trousers pockets, ‘I don’t go about measuring people for caps. If people find I have any about me that fit ’em, they can put ’em on and wear ’em, if they like. That’s their look out: not mine.’
It seems a little hard to be so tied to a stake, and innocent; but I don’t complain.’
‘And you must expect no miracle to help you, Neville,’ said Mr. Crisparkle, compassionately.
‘No, sir, I know that.
and that of course I am guiding myself by the advice of such a friend and helper. Such a good friend and helper!’
He took the fortifying hand from his shoulder, and kissed it. Mr. Crisparkle beamed at the books, but not so brightly as when he had entered.
But they were as serviceable as they were precious to Neville Landless.
‘I don’t think so,’ said the Minor Canon. ‘There is duty to be done here; and there are womanly feeling, sense, and courage wanted here.’
‘I meant,’ explained Neville, ‘that the surroundings are so dull and unwomanly, and that Helena can have no suitable friend or society here.’
‘You have only to remember,’ said Mr. Crisparkle, ‘that you are here yourself, and that she has to draw you into the sunlight.’
They were silent for a little while, and then Mr. Crisparkle began anew.
‘When we first spoke together, Neville, you told me that your sister had risen out of the disadvantages of your past lives as superior to you as the tower of Cloisterham Cathedral is higher than the chimneys of Minor Canon Corner. Do you remember that?’
‘Right well!’
‘I was inclined to think it at the time an enthusiastic flight. No matter what I think it now. What I would emphasise is, that under the head of Pride your sister is a great and opportune example to you.’
‘Under all heads that are included in the composition of a fine character, she is.’
‘Say so; but take this one.’
She can dominate it even when it is wounded through her sympathy with you.
Every day and hour of her life since Edwin Drood’s disappearance, she has faced malignity and folly—for you—as only a brave nature well directed can. So it will be with her to the end.
as she is a truly brave woman,’
As Mr. Grewgious had to turn his eye up considerably before he could see the chambers, the phrase was to be taken figuratively and not literally.
‘A watch?’ repeated Mr. Grewgious musingly.
‘I entertain a sort of fancy for having him under my eye to-night, do you know?’
In Chapter xviii.
‘indeed, I have no doubt that we could suit you that far, however particular you might be.
with a general impression on his mind that Mrs. Tope’s was somewhere very near it, and that, like the children in the game of hot boiled beans and very good butter, he was warm in his search when he saw the Tower, and cold when he didn’t see it.
He was getting very cold indeed when. ‘Until’ is put in here.
‘Indeed?’ said Mr. Datchery, with a second look of some interest.
Perhaps Mr. Datchery had heard something of what had occurred there last winter?
Mr. Datchery had as confused a knowledge of the event in question, on trying to recall it, as he well could have. He begged Mrs. Tope’s pardon when she found it incumbent on her to correct him in every detail of his summary of the facts, but pleaded that he was merely a single buffer getting through life upon his means as idly as he could, and that so many people were so constantly making away with so many other people, as to render it difficult for a buffer of an easy temper to preserve the circumstances of the several cases unmixed in his mind.
‘Might I ask His Honour,’ said Mr. Datchery, ‘whether that gentleman we have just left is the gentleman of whom I have heard in the neighbourhood as being much afflicted by the loss of a nephew, and concentrating his life on avenging the loss?’
‘That is the gentleman. John Jasper, sir.’
‘Would His Honour allow me to inquire whether there are strong suspicions of any one?’
‘More than suspicions, sir,’ returned Mr. Sapsea; ‘all but certainties.’
‘Only think now!’ cried Mr. Datchery.
‘But proof, sir, proof must be built up stone by stone,’ said the Mayor. ‘As I say, the end crowns the work. It is not enough that Justice should be morally certain; she must be immorally certain—legally, that is.’
‘His Honour,’ said Mr. Datchery, ‘reminds me of the nature of the law. Immoral. How true!’
‘As I say, sir,’ pompously went on the Mayor, ‘the arm of the law is a strong arm, and a long arm. That is the way I put it. A strong arm and a long arm.’
‘How forcible!—And yet, again, how true!’ murmured Mr. Datchery.
‘And without betraying what I call the secrets of the prison-house,’ said Mr. Sapsea; ‘the secrets of the prison-house is the term I used on the bench.’
‘And what other term than His Honour’s would express it?’ said Mr. Datchery.
‘Without, I say, betraying them, I predict to you, knowing the iron will of the gentleman we have just left (I take the bold step of calling it iron, on account of its strength), that in this case the long arm will reach, and the strong arm will strike. This is our Cathedral, sir. The best judges are pleased to admire it, and the best among our townsmen own to being a little vain of it.’
All this time Mr. Datchery had walked with his hat under his arm, and his white hair streaming.
In the next sentence the word now is struck out.
‘He had an odd momentary appearance upon him of having forgotten his hat, when Mr. Sapsea now touched it.’
‘I shall come. Master Deputy, what do you owe me?’
‘A job.’
‘Mind you pay me honestly with the job of showing me Mr. Durdles’s house when I want to go there.’
In Chapter xx.:—
‘Yes, you may be sure that the stairs are fireproof,’ said Mr. Grewgious, ‘and that any outbreak of the devouring element would be perceived and suppressed by the watchmen.’
I wished at the time that you had come to me; but now I think it best that you did as you did, and came to your guardian.’
‘I did think of you,’ Rosa told him; ‘but Minor Canon Corner was so near him—’
‘I understand. It was quite natural.’
‘Have you settled,’ asked Rosa, appealing to them both, ‘what is to be done for Helena and her brother?’
‘Why really,’ said Mr. Crisparkle, ‘I am in great perplexity. If even Mr. Grewgious, whose head is much longer than mine, and who is a whole night’s cogitation in advance of me, is undecided, what must I be!’
Am I agreed with generally in the views I take?’
‘I entirely coincide with them,’ said Mr. Crisparkle, who had been very attentive.
‘As I have no doubt I should,’ added Mr. Tartar, smiling, ‘if I understood them.’
‘Fair and softly, sir,’ said Mr. Grewgious; ‘we shall fully confide in you directly, if you will favour us with your permission.’
I make also a few notes based on a careful examination of the manuscript. Certain passages are rewritten, and the result pasted over the original page. These passages have been noted. Also certain sentences have been altered in form, sometimes by the substitution of one word for another, and sometimes by the addition of words. It is not necessary to give every example, but a few may be noted.
Towards the end of the second chapter the passage beginning ‘I have been taking opium for a pain,’ including the long paragraph which follows, has been entirely rewritten and pasted on.
In the description of the Landlesses in chapter vi. Dickens made certain changes. As the sentence stands now it reads as follows: ‘An unusually handsome lithe young fellow, and an unusually handsome lithe girl; much alike; both very dark, and very rich in colour; she of almost the gipsy type; something untamed about them both; a certain air upon them of hunter and huntress; yet withal a certain air of being the objects of the chase, rather than the followers.’
As originally written it read thus: ‘A handsome young fellow, and a handsome girl; both dark and rich in colour; she quite gipsy like; something untamed about them both; a certain air upon them of hunter and huntress; yet a certain air of being the objects of the chase, rather than the followers.’
In chapter vii., where Neville is speaking of his sister, as we have the passage it reads: ‘In a last word of reference to my sister, sir (we are twin children), you ought to know, to her honour, that nothing in our misery ever subdued her, though it often cowed me. When we ran away from it (we ran away four times in six years, to be soon brought back and cruelly punished), the flight was always of her planning and leading. Each time she dressed as a boy, and showed the daring of a man. I take it we were seven years old when we first decamped; but I remember, when I lost the pocket-knife with which she was to have cut her hair short, how desperately she tried to tear it out, or bite it off.’
The original version ran thus: ‘In reference to my sister, sir (we are twin children), you ought to know, to her honour, that nothing in our misery ever cowed her, though it often cowed me. When we ran away from it (we ran away four times in five years, to be very soon brought back and punished), the flight was always of her planning. Each time she dressed as a boy, and showed the daring of a man. I take it we were eight years old when we first decamped; but I remember, when I lost the pocket-knife with which she was to have cut her hair short, that she tried to tear it out, or bite it off.’
At the beginning of chapter xviii. we read of the stranger in Cloisterham: ‘Being buttoned up in a tightish blue surtout.’ This was originally: ‘Being dressed in a tightish blue surtout.’ A little further on in the same paragraph we have: ‘He stood with his back to the empty fireplace.’ Dickens originally wrote: ‘He stood with his back to the fireplace.’ In the next paragraph ‘His shock of white hair’ was originally ‘His shock of long white hair.’
In the same chapter, when Datchery and the boy are standing looking at Jasper’s rooms we have the following sentence: ‘“Indeed?” said Mr. Datchery, with a second look of some interest.’ This was originally written: ‘“Indeed?” said Mr. Datchery, with an appearance of interest.’ In the final proofs this passage was entirely struck out. On the next page we have this sentence: ‘Mr. Datchery, taking off his hat to give that shock of white hair of his another shake, seemed quite resigned, and betook himself whither he had been directed.’ The original version ran thus: ‘Mr. Datchery, taking off his hat and giving his shock of white hair another shake, was quite resigned, and betook himself whither he had been directed.’
A little further on in the same chapter, when Datchery first goes into Jasper’s room we have: ‘“I beg pardon,” said Mr. Datchery, making a leg with his hat under his arm.’ This was originally written, “I beg pardon,” said Mr. Datchery, hat in hand.’
In the last paragraph of this chapter we have: ‘Said Mr. Datchery to himself that night, as he looked at his white hair in the gas-lighted looking-glass over the coffee-room chimney-piece at the Crozier, and shook it out: “For a single buffer, of an easy temper, living idly on his means, I have had a rather busy afternoon!”’ This was originally written: ‘Said Mr. Datchery to himself that night as he looked at his white hair in the gas-lighted looking-glass over the coffee-room chimney-piece at the Crozier: “Well, for a single buffer of an easy temper, living idly on his means, I have had rather a busy afternoon!”’
In chapter xx., when Grewgious is talking about Bazzard we have the following: ‘“No, he goes his way, after office hours. In fact, he is off duty here, altogether, just at present; and a firm downstairs, with which I have business relations, lend me a substitute. But it would be extremely difficult to replace Mr. Bazzard.”’ Originally Dickens wrote: ‘“No, he goes his ways after office hours. In fact, he is off duty at present; and a firm downstairs with which I have business relations, lend me a substitute. But it would be difficult to replace Mr. Bazzard.”’
Chapter xxii. is much corrected, and the whole of the second paragraph is rewritten and pasted on. Chapter xxiii. is also a good deal corrected. Near the beginning we have the following: ‘The Cathedral doors have closed for the night; and the Choir-master, on a short leave of absence for two or three services, sets his face towards London.’ This was originally written: ‘The Cathedral doors have closed for the night; and the Choir-master, on leave of absence for a few days, sets his face towards London.’
The passage beginning: ‘But she goes no further away from it than the chair upon the hearth,’ and the next two paragraphs are entirely rewritten and pasted on, and the following sentences are cancelled: ‘“So far I might a’most as well have never found out how to set you talking,” is her commentary. “You are too sleepy to talk too plain. You hold your secrets right you do!”’ A little further on we have: ‘“Halloa!” he cries in a low voice, seeing her brought to a standstill: “who are you looking for?”’ This was originally ‘“Halloa!” cries this gentleman, “who are you looking for?”’
On the next page we have: ‘With his uncovered gray hair blowing about.’ Dickens originally wrote: ‘With his gray hair blowing about.’
On the same page, when Datchery and the opium woman are talking together Dickens puts in the following sentence about opium as an afterthought: ‘“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.”’
A little further on we have: ‘Mr. Datchery stops in his counting, finds he has counted wrong, shakes his money together, and begins again.’ Originally we had: ‘Mr. Datchery stops in his counting, finds he has counted wrong, and begins again.’ Very near the end of this chapter we have: ‘At length he rises, throws open the door of a corner cupboard, and refers to a few uncouth chalked strokes on its inner side.’ Dickens first wrote: ‘At length he rises, throws open the door of a corner cupboard, and refers to a few chalked strokes on its inner side.’
We now proceed to give such external testimony as exists of the plans and intentions of Dickens. The chief authority is, of course, the Life by Forster. We have in addition the testimony of Madame Perugini, whose first husband, Charles Allston Collins, designed the wrapper. To this we add the testimony of Charles Dickens the younger as conveyed to his sister. Through the kindness of Miss Bessie Hatton I have been able to read the text of the unacted play written by Joseph Hatton and Charles Dickens the younger on The Mystery of Edwin Drood. We have also the important letter of Sir Luke Fildes, who was chosen by Dickens to illustrate the story. It seems essential to any complete consideration of the subject that these testimonies should be given in full, and this is the more necessary because some of them are now not readily at hand.
Dickens in 1868 had been alarming his friends and exhausting himself by his public Readings. When he was in America on his last Reading tour he had made a profit of about £20,000. He entered into an agreement with Messrs. Chappell to give a final course of Readings in this country, from which he expected to receive an additional £13,000. The strain of his work in America had manifestly told upon him. ‘There was manifest abatement of his natural force, the elasticity of bearing was impaired, and the wonderful brightness of eye was dimmed at times.’ Unfavourable and alarming symptoms of nerve mischief were also noted, but he drew lavishly on his reserve strength, and thinking that a new excitement was needed he chose the Oliver Twist murder, one of the most trying of his public recitals. He suffered ‘thirty thousand shocks to the nerves’ going to Edinburgh. His Readings and his journeyings exacted from him the most terrible physical exertion, but no warnings could arrest his course till his physicians peremptorily ordered him to desist. Even then, however, he resumed his Readings at a later date.
In this condition of mental and bodily fatigue Dickens began his last book. I print almost in full the relative passages from Forster.
The last book undertaken by Dickens was to be published in illustrated monthly numbers, of the old form, but to close with the twelfth. It closed, unfinished, with the sixth number, which was itself underwritten by two pages.
His first fancy for the tale was expressed in a letter in the middle of July. ‘What should you think of the idea of a story beginning in this way?—Two people, boy and girl, or very young, going apart from one another, pledged to be married after many years—at the end of the book. The interest to arise out of the tracing of their separate ways, and the impossibility of telling what will be done with that impending fate.’ This was laid aside; but it left a marked trace on the story as afterwards designed, in the position of Edwin Drood and his betrothed.
I first heard of the later design in a letter dated ‘Friday, the 6th of August 1869,’ in which, after speaking, with the usual unstinted praise he bestowed always on what moved him in others, of a little tale he had received for his journal, he spoke of the change that had occurred to him for the new tale by himself. ‘I laid aside the fancy I told you of, and have a very curious and new idea for my new story. Not a communicable idea (or the interest of the book would be gone), but a very strong one, though difficult to work.’ The story, I learnt immediately afterward, was to be that of the murder of a nephew by his uncle; the originality of which was to consist in the review of the murderer’s career by himself at the close, when its temptations were to be dwelt upon as if, not he, the culprit, but some other man, were the tempted. The last chapters were to be written in the condemned cell, to which his wickedness, all elaborately elicited from him as if told of another, had brought him. Discovery by the murderer of the utter needlessness of the murder for its object, was to follow hard upon commission of the deed; but all discovery of the murderer was to be baffled till towards the close, when, by means of a gold ring which had resisted the corrosive effects of the lime into which he had thrown the body, not only the person murdered was to be identified, but the locality of the crime and the man who committed it. So much was told to me before any of the book was written; and it will be recollected that the ring, taken by Drood to be given to his betrothed only if their engagement went on, was brought away with him from their last interview. Rosa was to marry Tartar, and Crisparkle the sister of Landless, who was himself, I think, to have perished in assisting Tartar finally to unmask and seize the murderer.
Nothing had been written, however, of the main parts of the design excepting what is found in the published numbers; there was no hint or preparation for the sequel in any notes of chapters in advance; and there remained not even what he had himself so sadly written of the book by Thackeray also interrupted by death. The evidence of matured designs never to be accomplished, intentions planned never to be executed, roads of thought marked out never to be traversed, goals shining in the distance never to be reached, was wanting here. It was all a blank. Enough had been completed nevertheless to give promise of a much greater book than its immediate predecessor. ‘I hope his book is finished,’ wrote Longfellow, when the news of his death was flashed to America. ‘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.’ Some of its characters are touched with subtlety, and in its descriptions his imaginative power was at its best. Not a line was wanting to the reality, in the most minute local detail, of places the most widely contrasted; and we saw with equal vividness the lazy cathedral town and the lurid opium-eater’s den. Something like the old lightness and buoyancy of animal spirits gave a new freshness to the humour; the scenes of the child-heroine and her luckless betrothed had both novelty and nicety of character in them; and Mr. Grewgious in chambers with his clerk and the two waiters, the conceited fool Sapsea, and the blustering philanthropist Honeythunder, were first-rate comedy. Miss Twinkleton was of the family of Miss La Creevy; and the lodging-house keeper, Miss Billickin, though she gave Miss Twinkleton but a sorry account of her blood, had that of Mrs. Todgers in her veins. ‘I was put in early life to a very genteel boarding-school, the mistress being no less a lady than yourself, of about your own age, or it may be some years younger, and a poorness of blood flowed from the table which has run through my life.’ Was ever anything better said of a school-fare of starved gentility?
The last page of Edwin Drood was written in the châlet in the afternoon of his last day of consciousness; and I have thought there might be some interest in a facsimile of the greater part of this final page of manuscript that ever came from his hand, at which he had worked unusually late in order to finish the chapter. It has very much the character, in its excessive care of correction and interlineation, of all his later manuscripts; and in order that comparison may be made with his earlier and easier method, I place beside it a portion of a page of the original of Oliver Twist. His greater pains and elaboration of writing, it may be mentioned, become first very obvious in the later parts of Martin Chuzzlewit; but not the least remarkable feature in all his manuscripts is the accuracy with which the portions of each representing the several numbers are exactly adjusted to the space the printer has to fill. Whether without erasure or so interlined as to be illegible, nothing is wanting, and there is nothing in excess. So assured had the habit become, that we have seen him remarking upon an instance the other way, in Our Mutual Friend, as not having happened to him for thirty years. Certainly the exceptions had been few and unimportant; but Edwin Drood more startlingly showed him how unsettled the habit he most prized had become, in the clashing of old and new pursuits. ‘When I had written’ (22nd of December 1869), ‘and, as I thought, disposed of the first two numbers of my story, Clowes informed me to my horror that they were, together, twelve printed pages too short! Consequently I had to transpose a chapter from number two to number one, and remodel number two altogether. This was the more unlucky, that it came upon me at the time when I was obliged to leave the book, in order to get up the Readings’ (the additional twelve for which Sir Thomas Watson’s consent had been obtained); ‘quite gone out of my mind since I left them off. However, I turned to it and got it done, and both numbers are now in type. Charles Collins has designed an excellent cover.’ It was his wish that his son-in-law should have illustrated the story; but this not being practicable, upon an opinion expressed by Mr. Millais which the result thoroughly justified, choice was made of Mr. S. L. Fildes.
Forster goes on to explain as follows the discovery of the manuscript containing the passage ‘How Mr. Sapsea Ceased to be a Member of the Eight Club.’ This is to be found in every edition of Edwin Drood, but Forster’s remarks are important and must be reproduced:
This reference to the last effort of Dickens’s genius had been written as it thus stands, when a discovery of some interest was made by the writer. Within the leaves of one of Dickens’s other manuscripts were found some detached slips of his writing, on paper only half the size of that used for the tale, so cramped, interlined, and blotted as to be nearly illegible, which on close inspection proved to be a scene in which Sapsea the auctioneer is introduced as the principal figure, among a group of characters new to the story. The explanation of it perhaps is, that, having become 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 in the fifth number (a misgiving he had certainly expressed to his sister-in-law), it had occurred to him to open some fresh veins of character incidental to the interest, though not directly part of it, and so to handle them in connection with Sapsea as a little to suspend the final development even while assisting to strengthen it. Before beginning any number of a serial, he used, as we have seen in former instances, to plan briefly what he intended to put into it chapter by chapter; and his first number-plan of Drood had the following: ‘Mr. Sapsea. Old Tory jackass. Connect Jasper with him. (He will want a solemn donkey by and by)’; which was effected by bringing together both Durdles and Jasper, for connection with Sapsea, in the matter of the epitaph for Mrs. Sapsea’s tomb. The scene now discovered might in this view have been designed to strengthen and carry forward that element in the tale; and otherwise it very sufficiently expresses itself. It would supply an answer, if such were needed, to those who have asserted that the hopeless decadence of Dickens as a writer had set in before his death. Among the lines last written by him, these are the very last we can ever hope to receive; and they seem to me a delightful specimen of the power possessed by him in his prime, and the rarest which any novelist can have, of revealing a character by a touch. Here are a couple of people, Kimber and Peartree, not known to us before, whom we read off thoroughly in a dozen words; and as to Sapsea himself, auctioneer and mayor of Cloisterham, we are face to face with what before we only dimly realised, and we see the solemn jackass, in his business pulpit, playing off the airs of Mr. Dean in his Cathedral pulpit, with Cloisterham laughing at the impostor.’
Madame Perugini’s article appeared in the Pall Mall Magazine for June 1906. The title is ‘Edwin Drood and the Last Days of Charles Dickens, by his younger daughter Kate Perugini.’ Madame Perugini begins by summarising the evidence of Forster as already given. She proceeds to make the following instructive comments. It will be observed also that she makes no additions to the external evidence, particularly on the vexed question of the wrapper:
The Mystery of Edwin Drood is a story, or, to speak more correctly, the half of a story, that has excited so much general interest and so many speculations as to its ultimate disclosures, that it has given rise to various imaginary theories on the part of several clever writers; and to much discussion among those who are not writers, but merely fervent admirers and thoughtful readers of my father’s writings. All these attach different meanings to the extraordinary number of clues my father has offered them to follow, and they are even more keen at the present day than they were when the book made its first appearance to find their way through the tangled maze and arrive at the very heart of the mystery. Among the numerous books, pamphlets, and articles that have been written upon Edwin Drood, there are some that are extremely interesting and well worth attention, for they contain many clever and possible suggestions, and although they do not entirely convince us, yet they add still more to the almost painful anxiety we all feel in wandering through the lonely precincts of Cloisterham Cathedral, or along the banks of the river that runs through Cloisterham town and leads to the Weir of which we are told in the story.
In following these writers to the end of their subtle imaginings as to how the mystery might be solved, we may sometimes be inclined to pause for an instant and ask ourselves whether my father did not perhaps intend his story to have an ending less complicated, although quite as interesting, as any that are suggested. We find ourselves turning to John Forster’s Life of Charles Dickens to help us in our perplexity, and this is what we read in his chapter headed ‘Last Book.’ Mr. Forster begins by telling us that Edwin Drood was to be published in twelve illustrated monthly parts, and that it closed prematurely with the sixth number, which was itself underwritten by two pages; therefore my father had exactly six numbers and two pages to write when he left his little châlet in the shrubbery of Gad’s Hill Place on 8th June 1870, to which he never returned. Mr. Forster goes on to say: ‘His first fancy for the tale was expressed in July (meaning the July of 1869), in a letter which runs thus:
‘“What should you think of the idea of a story beginning in this way?—Two people, boy and girl, or very young, going apart from one another, pledged to be married after many years—at the end of the book. The interest to arise out of the tracing of their separate ways and the impossibility of telling what will be done with that impending fate.”’
This idea my father relinquished, although he left distinct traces of it in his tale; and in a letter to Mr. Forster, dated 6th August 1869, tells him:
‘I laid aside the fancy I told you of, and have a very curious and new idea for my new story. Not a communicable idea (or the interest of the book would be gone), but a very strong one, though difficult to work.’
Mr. Forster then says that he immediately afterwards learnt that the story was to be ‘the murder of a nephew by his uncle’; the originality of which was to consist in the review of the murderer’s career by himself at the close, when its temptations were to be dwelt upon as if not he, the culprit, but some other man, were the tempted. The last chapters were to be written in the condemned cell, to which his wickedness, all elaborately elicited from him as if told of another, had brought him. Discovery by the murderer of the utter needlessness of the murder for its object, was to follow hard upon commission of the deed; but all discovery of the murderer was to be baffled till towards the close, when, by means of a gold ring which had resisted the corrosive effects of the lime into which he had thrown the body, not only the person murdered was to be identified, but the locality of the crime and the man who committed it.’
Mr. Forster adds a little information as to the marriages at the close of the book, and makes use of the expression ‘I think’ in speaking of Neville Landless, as though he were not quite certain of what he remembered concerning him. This ‘I think’ has been seized upon by some of Mr. Forster’s critics, who appear to argue that because he did not clearly recollect one detail of the story he may therefore have been mistaken in the whole. But we see for ourselves that Mr. Forster is perfectly well informed as to the nature of the plot, and the fate of the two principal characters concerned, the murdered and the murderer; and the only thing upon which he is not positive is the ending of Neville Landless, to which he confesses in the words ‘I think,’ thus making his testimony to the more important facts the more impressive. If we have any doubts as to whether Mr. Forster correctly stated what he was told, we have only to turn to the story of Edwin Drood, and we find, as far as it goes, that his statement is entirely corroborated by what we read in the book.
If those who are interested in the subject will carefully read what I have quoted, they will not be able to detect any word or hint from my father that it was upon the Mystery alone that he relied for the interest and originality of his idea. The originality was to be shown, as he tells us, in what we may call the psychological description the murderer gives us of his temptations, temperament, and character, as if told by another; and my father speaks openly of the ring to Mr. Forster. Moreover, he refers to it often in his story, and we all recognise it, whatever our other convictions may be, as the instrument by which Jasper’s wickedness and guilt are to be established in the end. I do not mean to imply that the mystery itself had no strong hold on my father’s imagination; but, greatly as he was interested in the intricacies of that tangled skein, the information he voluntarily gave to Mr. Forster, from whom he had withheld nothing for thirty-three years, certainly points to the fact that he was quite as deeply fascinated and absorbed in the study of the criminal Jasper, as in the dark and sinister crime that has given the book its title. And he also speaks to Mr. Forster of the murder of a nephew by an uncle. He does not say that he is uncertain whether he shall save the nephew, but has evidently made up his mind that the crime is to be committed. And so he told his plot to Mr. Forster, as he had been accustomed to tell his plots for years past; and those who knew him must feel it impossible to believe that in this, the last year of his life, he should suddenly become underhand, and we might say treacherous, to his old friend, by inventing for his private edification a plot that he had no intention of carrying into execution. This is incredible, and the nature of the friendship that existed between Mr. Forster and himself makes the idea unworthy of consideration.
Mr. Forster was devotedly attached to my father, but as years passed by this engrossing friendship made him a little jealous of his confidence, and more than a little exacting in his demands upon it. My father was perfectly aware of this weakness in his friend, and although the knowledge of it made him smile at times, and even joke about it when we were at home and alone, he was always singularly tenderhearted where Mr. Forster was concerned, and was particularly careful never to wound the very sensitive nature of one who, from the first moment of their acquaintance, had devoted his time and energy to making my father’s path in life as smooth as so intricate a path could be made. In all business transactions Mr. Forster acted for him, and generally brought him through these troubles triumphantly, whereas, if left to himself, his impetuosity and impatience might have spoilt all chances of success; while in all his private troubles my father instinctively turned to his friend, and even when not invariably following his advice, had yet so much confidence in his judgment as to be rendered not only uneasy but unhappy if Mr. Forster did not approve of the decision at which he ultimately arrived. From the beginning of their friendship to the end of my father’s life the relations between the two friends remained unchanged; and the notion that has been spread abroad that my father wilfully misled Mr. Forster in what he told him of the plot of Edwin Drood should be abandoned, as it does not correspond with the knowledge of those who understood the dignity of my father’s character, and were also aware of the perfectly frank terms upon which he lived with Mr. Forster.
If my father again changed his plan for the story of Edwin Drood the first thing he would naturally do would be to write to Mr. Forster and inform him of the alteration. We might imagine for an instant that he would perhaps desire to keep the change as a surprise for his friend, but what I have just stated with regard to Mr. Forster’s character renders this supposition out of the question, as my father knew for a certainty that his jealousy would debar him from appreciating such a surprise, and that he would in all probability strongly resent what he might with justice be allowed to consider as a piece of unnecessary caution on my father’s part. That he did not write to Mr. Forster to tell him of any divergence from his second plan for the book we all know, and we know also that my eldest brother, Charles, positively declared that he had heard from his father’s lips that Edwin Drood was dead. Here, therefore, are two very important witnesses to a fact that is still doubted by those who never met my father, and were never impressed by the grave sincerity with which he would have given this assurance.
It is very often those who most doubt Mr. Forster’s accuracy on this point who are in the habit of turning to his book when they are in the search of facts to establish some theory of their own; and they do not hesitate to do this, because they know that whatever views they may hold upon the work itself, or the manner in which it is written, absolute truth is to be found in its pages. Why should they refuse, therefore, to believe a statement made upon one page of his three volumes, when they willingly and gratefully accept the rest if it is to their interest to do so? This is a difficult question to answer, but it is not without importance when we are discussing the subject of Edwin Drood. On pages 425 and 426 of the third volume of Mr. Forster’s Life is to be found the simple explanation of my father’s plot for his story, as given to him by my father himself. It is true that Mr. Forster speaks from remembrance, but how often does he not speak from remembrance, and yet how seldom are we inclined to doubt his word? Only here, because what he tells us does not exactly fit in with our preconceived views as to how the tale shall be finished, are we disposed to quarrel with him, for the simple reason that we flatter ourselves we have discovered a better ending to the book than the one originally intended for it by the author. And so we put his statement aside and ignore it, while we grope in the dark for a thing we shall never find; and we obstinately refuse to allow even the little glimmer of light my father has himself thrown upon the obscurity to help us in our search. It was not, I imagine, for the intricate working out of his plot alone that my father cared to write this story; but it was through his wonderful observation of character, and his strange insight into the tragic secrets of the human heart, that he desired his greatest triumph to be achieved.
I do not write upon these things because I have any fresh or startling theories to offer upon the subject of Edwin Drood. I cannot say that I am without my own opinions, but I am fully conscious that after what has been already so ably said, they would have but little interest for the general public; so I shrink from venturing upon any suggestions respecting the solution of my father’s last book. My chief object in writing is to remind the readers of this paper that there are certain facts connected with this story that cannot lightly be put aside, and these facts are to be found in John Forster’s Life of Charles Dickens, and in the declaration made by my brother Charles. Having known both Mr. Forster and my brother intimately, I cannot for a moment believe that either of them would speak or write that which he did not know to be strictly true; and it is on these grounds alone that I think I have a right to be heard when I insist upon the assertion that Edwin Drood was undoubtedly murdered by his uncle Jasper. As to the unravelling of the mystery, and the way in which the murder was perpetrated, we are all at liberty to have our own views, seeing that no explanations were as yet arrived at in the story; but we should remember that only vague speculations can be indulged in when we try to imagine them for ourselves.
It has been pointed out, and very justly, that although Jasper removed the watch, chain, and scarf-pin from Edwin’s body, there would possibly remain on it money of some kind, keys, and the metal buttons on his clothes, which the action of the quicklime could not destroy, and by which his identity would be made known. This has been looked upon as an oversight, a mere piece of forgetfulness on my father’s part. But remembering, as I do very well, what he often said, that the most clever criminals were constantly detected through some small defect in their calculations, I cannot but think it most probable that this was not an oversight, but was intended to lead up to the pet theory that he so frequently mentioned whenever a murder case was brought to trial. After reading Edwin Drood many times, as most of us have read it, we must, I think, come to the conclusion that not a word of this tale was written without full consideration; that in this story at least my father left nothing to chance, and that therefore the money, and the buttons, were destined to take their proper place in the book, and might turn out to be a weak spot in Jasper’s well-arranged and complicated plot, the weak spot my father insisted upon, as being inseparable from the commission of a great crime, however skilfully planned. The keys spoken of need not be taken seriously into account, for Edwin was a careless young fellow, and it is not unreasonable to suppose that he did not always carry them upon his person; he was staying with his uncle, and he may have left them in the portmanteau, which was most likely at the time of the murder lying unfastened in his room, with the key belonging to it in the lock. It would be unfair to suggest that my father wrote unadvisedly of this or that, for he had still the half of his story to finish, and plenty of time, as he thought, in which to gather up the broken threads and weave them into a symmetrical and harmonious whole, which he was so eminently capable of completing.
That my father’s brain was more than usually clear and bright during the writing of Edwin Drood, no one who lived with him could possibly doubt; and the extraordinary interest he took in the development of this story was apparent in all that he said or did, and was often the subject of conversation between those who anxiously watched him as he wrote, and feared that he was trying his strength too far. For although my father’s death was sudden and unexpected, the knowledge that his bodily health was failing had been for some time too forcibly brought to the notice of those who loved him, for them to be blind to the fact that the book he was now engaged in, and the concentration of his devotion and energy upon it, were a tax too great for his fast-ebbing strength. Any attempt to stay him, however, in work that he had undertaken was as idle as stretching one’s hands to a river and bidding it cease to flow; and beyond a few remonstrances now and again urged, no such attempt was made, knowing as we did that it would be entirely useless. And so the work sped on, carrying with it my father’s few remaining days of life, and the end came all too soon, as it was bound to come, to one who never ceased to labour for those who were dear to him, in the hope of gaining for them that which he was destined never to enjoy. And in my father’s grave lies buried the secret of his story.
The scene of the Eight Club, which Mr. Forster discovered after his death, in which there figure two new characters, Mr. Peartree and Mr. Kimber, bears no relation as we read it to the unfolding of the plot; and although the young man Poker, who is also introduced in this fragment for the first time, seems to be of more significance, we see too little of him to be certain that we may not already have made his acquaintance. In Mr. Sapsea my father evidently took much pleasure, and we are here reminded of the note made for him in the first number-plan of Edwin Drood: ‘Mr. Sapsea. Old Tory jackass. Connect Jasper with him. (He will want a solemn donkey by and by.)’ My father also wanted the solemn donkey, and not only brought him in for the purposes of his story, but because, as in the case of ‘the Billickin,’ he took delight in dwelling upon the absurdities of the character.
As to the cover of Edwin Drood, that has been the subject of so much discussion there is very little to tell. It was designed and drawn by Mr. Charles A. Collins, my first husband. The same reasons that prevented me from teasing my father with questions respecting his story made me refrain from asking any of Mr. Collins; but from what he said I certainly gathered that he was not in possession of my father’s secret, although he had made his designs from my father’s directions. There are a few things in this cover that I fancy have been a little misunderstood. In the book only Jasper and Neville Landless are described as dark young men. Edwin Drood is fair, and so is Crisparkle. Tartar is burnt by the sun; but when Rosa asks ‘the Unlimited head chambermaid’ at the hotel in Furnival’s Inn if the gentleman who has just called is dark, she replies:
‘No, Miss, more of a brown gentleman.’
‘You are sure not with black hair?’ asked Rosa, taking courage.
‘Quite sure of that, Miss. Brown hair and blue eyes.’
Now in a drawing it would be difficult to make a distinction between the fair hair of Edwin and the slightly darker hair of Tartar; and in the picture, where we see a girl—Rosa we imagine her to be—seated in a garden, the young man at her feet is, I feel pretty sure, intended for Tartar. Edwin it cannot be, nor Neville, as has been supposed, for he was decidedly dark. Besides this, Neville would not have told his affection to Rosa, for Helena was far too quick-witted not to understand from Rosa’s first mention of Tartar that she is already in love with him, and she would have warned and saved the brother to whom she was so ardently attached from making any such confession. The figure is not intended for Jasper, because we know that Jasper did not move from the sun-dial in the scene where he declares his mad passion for Rosa, and Jasper had black hair and whiskers. And, again, the drawing cannot be meant to represent Helena and Crisparkle, for the young man is not in clerical dress. The figures going up the stairs are still more difficult to make out; but there can be little doubt that the active higher one is the same young man we see at Rosa’s feet, and must therefore be Tartar. Of the remaining two, one may be Crisparkle, although there is still no clerical attire, and the other either Grewgious or Neville, though the drawing certainly bears but little resemblance to either of those characters.
The lower and middle picture is, of course, the great scene of the book; but whether the young man standing calm, and inexorable as Fate, is intended to be the ghost of Edwin as seen by Jasper in his half-dazed and drugged condition, or whether it is Helena dressed as Datchery, as one writer has ingeniously suggested (although there are reasons in the story against the supposition that Helena is Datchery, and many to support the theory that the ‘old buffer’ is Bazzard),—these are puzzles that will never be cleared up, except to the minds of those who have positively determined that they hold the clue to the mystery, and can only see its interpretation from one point of view. The girl’s figure with streaming hair, in the picture where the word ‘Lost’ is written, has been supposed to represent Rosa after her parting from Edwin; but it may more likely, I think, indicate some scene in the book which has yet to be described in the story. This is another enigma; but my father, it may be presumed, intended to puzzle his readers by the cover, and he had every legitimate right to do so, for had his meaning been made perfectly clear ‘the interest of the book would be gone.’ Some surprise has been expressed because Mr. Forster did not ask Mr. Collins for the meaning of his designs; but if he already knew the plot, why should he seek information from Mr. Collins? particularly as my father may have told him that he had not disclosed the secret of his story to his illustrators, for I believe I am right in affirming that Mr. Luke Fildes was no better informed as to the plan of the book than was Mr. Collins.