For the meeting on June 26th we are reading The Mystery of Edwin Drood by Charles Dickens. There can’t be any need to make the case for Dickens but, on my own behalf, I am encouraged that Edwin Drood comes in at only a modest three hundred pages… though who knows how long it might have been had Dickens not been (fatally) interrupted? Having recently viewed and enjoyed the 2012 BBC adaptation of Drood the plotting is (for me) taken care of in advance and I anticipate a relaxed appreciation of Dickens’ writing.
Synopsis taken from the Vintage edition:
The story of the fate of Edwin Drood is a mystery within a mystery. When young Edwin disappears after dinner on Christmas Eve and his watch and chain are later found in the nearby river, everyone suspects foul play. Could one of Edwin’s acquaintances have murdered him – and, if so, what could their motive be? And how does this shocking event in a quiet cathedral town connect to the opium dens of London? Tragically, the mystery is destined never to be truly solved, as Dickens died before he could finish this novel – all that is left are the clues that can be found in the completed chapters.
[...] Synopsis of The Mystery of Edwin Drood [...]