Join us in Solving The Mystery of Edwin Drood!

(Banner Image: “Sleeping it off,” by Sir Luke Fildes. Victorian Web.)

By Rach & Boze

It is Christmas Eve in Cloisterham–or Rochester, if you live anywhere other than the Dickensian Alternate Universe. A sudden disappearance…and possible murder?

Several suspects. Opium addition. Envy. Obsessive love–or lust. Jealous rivals. Possible murder weapons. Possible locations for the crime, and for the body. Quicklime. A missing ring.

But we don’t have a body. Is the missing man dead or alive? And who the Dickens is Dick Datchery? Is he a new character, or one of our already-known characters in disguise?

These and many other questions have haunted Droodists and Dickensians for decades.

How would Dickens have finished his final, half-completed novel? Films have been made, novels written, and much critical ink spilled over the question, with various solutions and resolutions proposed. A book called The D Case brings in all of our beloved fictional detectives, from Sherlock Holmes to Hercule Poirot to Father Brown, in order to solve it. Dr Pete Orford (University of Buckingham) not only has a wonderful book on the subject, but he led readers from all walks of life in a detective hunt to solve it with The Drood Inquiry. In real life, G.K. Chesterton was involved in a court case set up to “try” the fictional John Jasper for murder. A popular stage musical gets the audience involved in solving the mystery.

So, whether or not you’ve been part of our nearly three-year Dickens Chronological Reading Club, we would love for you to join us on this six-week detective hunt to solve The Mystery of Edwin Drood!

The Schedule:

• 20 August, 2024: Boze and Rach, your co-hosts, will post an introduction to The Mystery of Edwin Drood.
• 20 August to 30 September, 2024: We’ll read one installment (3-4 chapters) each week. Rach will write a weekly chapter summary and discussion wrap-up, to be posted each Monday, based on our comments under the previous post. There will be a look-ahead to the next week’s reading portion. There will be polls and questions and reference material from Dickens’s writing, and from “witnesses” (Katey Dickens; Dickens’s closest friend, John Forster; notes to Dickens’s illustrators, etc) in order to help us solve the mystery.
• 30 September, 2024: Rach will post a final wrap-up to pull together our discussion.
• 5 October, 2024: An optional Zoom chat for any who would like to discuss the mystery!

What a marvelous way to conclude this Dickensian Journey that began on January 4, 2022! Whether or not you’ve joined in for some or all of it, we’d love to have you aboard!