The Mystery of Edwin Drood

Left unfinished at Dickens's death in 1870, this novel is set in Cloisterham, a cathedral town, and in London. John Jasper, the opium-taking choirmaster, is uncle and guardian to Edwin Drood, who is engaged to Rosa Bud, Jasper's music pupil. The arrival of the twins Neville and Helena Landless stirs jealousy; Edwin and Neville quarrel, and Edwin disappears after a stormy Christmas Eve. Dickens had planned a murder mystery around the disappearance, but only about half the book exists. Minor figures include the stonemason Durdles and the philanthropist Honeythunder. The work is an incomplete sensation novel, not a closed case.

Bound in cream cloth printed with a montage of Keeping’s illustrations from the text, with dark red spine-label. Dark red endleaves. Dark red slipcase, with Dickens’s signature in gold.