Penguin Classics give you the best possible editions of Charles Dickens's novels,
including all the original illustrations, useful and informative introductions, the
definitive, accurate text as it was meant to be published, a chronology of Dickens's life
and notes that fill in the background to the book. This Penguin Classics edition of The
Mystery of Edwin Drood also includes the mysterious 'Sapsea Fragment' and Dickens's
plans for the story.
The Mystery of Edwin Drood, Dickens' last novel, is a mystery built around a
presumed crime - the murder of a nephew by his uncle. Dickens died before completing the
story, leaving the mystery unsolved and encouraging successive generations of readers to
turn detective. Beyond the preoccupying fact of this intriguing crime, however, the novel
also offers readers a characteristically Dickensian mix of the fantastical world of the
imagination and a vibrantly journalistic depiction of gritty reality.
This edition contains an introduction discussing the novel’s ending, with a chronology,
notes, original illustrations and appendices on Opium use in the nineteenth century, the
‘Sapsea Fragment’ and Dickens’s plans for the story.
