Skip to main content

Five Studies in Dickens's Edwin Drood: Nerds Writing Nerdsays

In that fragmentary firmament which Charles Dickens called The Mystery of Edwin Drood the stars shine on, and I may still fix my gaze upon them, seeking for the letters I have yet to learn.

Richard M. Baker...is a giant nerd. And I love him.


In 1948, he published a series of essays called The Drood Murder Case: Five Studies in Dickens's Edwin Drood, which I have just finished after having it out from the library for eight months (to exactly no one's surprise, no one else requested it during this time).


He basically describes himself as a giant Dickens dork who really loves Edwin Drood and so he researched the shit out of it. And oh. Yes he did. For those unaware, The Mystery of Edwin Drood was Dickens's last novel and only half of it was completed when Dickens died, leaving almost no clues as to the ending. This has prompted many scholars to try to piece it together (WHAT'S THE MYSTERY NOW, DICKENS), write books, write novel-form continuations, AND, of course, there is the musical The Mystery of Edwin Drood.


This might not be in the original

I don't consider things for Edwin Drood spoilers, because it is an UNFINISHED BOOK, so here's the quick rundown: In a cathedral town called Cloisterham, there's young Edwin Drood engaged to Rosa Bud (blonde girl above); his uncle Jasper who's creepy and in love with Rosa (guy above); Helena and Neville Landless, twins from India; and assorted other people who don't really matter a ton but whom I love very much (HIRAM GREWGIOUS AND THE REVEREND CRISPARKLE 4EVR). 

Edwin and Rosa have been engaged since childhood, but decide to call it off because they feel all sibling-like towards each other, and ew. Jasper doesn't know this, and PROBABLY (definitely) kills Edwin. I mean, we don't know for sure, but he basically says he's going to and then slobbers all over Rosa and then the last time Edwin's seen alive, Jasper's going upstairs to see him with a long black scarf twisted up in his hands. 



SO. Edwin disappears, what's up, who did it, is he dead or alive, what's going on with Jasper and will his opium addiction finally catch up to him, and most importantly, can Alice adopt the lawyer Hiram Grewgious even though he's way older than she is and fictional? Richard M. Baker tries to answer almost all these questions (leaving off the most important, but I forgive him, as when he wrote this my father was eight). And he is a GIANT dork about it. It's the endearingest. 

It was all over for me when, writing about the possibility of Jasper putting Edwin's body in quicklime and also trying to make sense of a six month skip-over that Dickens does in Drood (notable because he almost never does that in his novels), he starts mulling over how long quicklime would take to dissolve a body, and says:
Making a final attempt to settle this question, I presented my problem in a letter addressed to Dr. Alan R. Moritz, a criminal pathologist and head of the Department of Legal Medicine at Harvard Medical School. A week later I received a highly informative reply from Robert P. Brittain.

First of all, HOW cute are all the middle initials? Secondly — you are a man after my own heart, sir. You wrote a letter in the 1940s to Harvard Medical School asking how long quicklime takes to dissolve a body. (plot twist! it preserves it!)

He makes a pretty good case for 1) The identity of the mysterious stranger Dick Datchery, who appears right before the novel ends, and 2) Is Edwin Drood murdered? The answer to the latter seems to be "Yes, unless you're an idiot and believe otherwise." Why? Mainly because EVERYONE WHO CHATTED WITH DICKENS AT THE TIME SAID HE SAID SO. Meaning his editor, his son, and his daughter. And people are still like "Yeah, right, like he'd tell THEM what was going to happen in his book."



Edwin Drood's kind of neglected since it IS only a half-finished book. And some people're pretty mean about it. But I hereby tell you that it is complex, interesting, has characters that stick with you, and the fact that the book ends where it does isn't as maddening as you might think it would be. I love that it's set in Cloisterham (aka Rochester). It feels much more insular than most of his other, more sprawling novels. Rosa Bud has an actual personality, despite being his usual 16-year-old blonde heroine. And the exchange between Miss Twinkleton and Mrs. Billickin is one of my favorite Dickensian moments of ever.

I don't recommend this particular book to any of you, as it's just pure Edwin Drood nerdery, but you really should read the novel itself. And then listen to the musical. Which is ALSO great.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Harry Potter 2013 Readalong Signup Post of Amazingness and Jollity

Okay, people. Here it is. Where you sign up to read the entire Harry Potter series (or to reminisce fondly), starting January 2013, assuming we all survive the Mayan apocalypse. I don't think I'm even going to get to Tina and Bette's reunion on The L Word until after Christmas, so here's hopin'. You guys know how this works. Sign up if you want to. If you're new to the blog, know that we are mostly not going to take this seriously. And when we do take it seriously, it's going to be all Monty Python quotes when we disagree on something like the other person's opinion on Draco Malfoy. So be prepared for your parents being likened to hamsters. If you want to write lengthy, heartfelt essays, that is SWELL. But this is maybe not the readalong for you. It's gonna be more posts with this sort of thing: We're starting Sorceror's/Philosopher's Stone January 4th. Posts will be on Fridays. The first post will be some sort of hilar

Minithon: The Mini Readathon, January 11th, 2020

The minithon is upon us once more! Minithons are for the lazy. Minithons are for the uncommitted. Minithons are for us. The minithon lasts 6 hours (10 AM to 4 PM CST), therefore making it a mini readathon, as opposed to the lovely Dewey's 24 Hour Readathon and 24in48, both of which you should participate in, but both of which are a longer commitment than this, the Busy Watching Netflix person's readathon. By 'read for six hours' what's really meant in the minithon is "read a little bit and eat a lot of snacks and post pictures of your books and your snacks, but mostly your snacks." We like to keep it a mini theme here, which mainly means justifying your books and your snacks to fit that theme. Does your book have children in it? Mini people! Does it have a dog! Mini wolf! Does it have pencils? Mini versions of graphite mines! or however you get graphite, I don't really know. I just picture toiling miners. The point is, justify it or don't

How to Build a Girl Introductory Post, which is full of wonderful things you probably want to read

Acclaimed (in England mostly) lady Caitlin Moran has a novel coming out. A NOVEL. Where before she has primarily stuck to essays. Curious as we obviously were about this, I and a group of bloggers are having a READALONG of said novel, probably rife with spoilers (maybe they don't really matter for this book, though, so you should totally still read my posts). This is all hosted/cared for/lovingly nursed to health by Emily at As the Crowe Flies (and Reads) because she has a lovely fancy job at an actual bookshop ( Odyssey Books , where you can in fact pre-order this book and then feel delightful about yourself for helping an independent store). Emily and I have negotiated the wonders of Sri Lankan cuisine and wandered the Javits Center together. Would that I could drink with her more often than I have. I feel like we could get to this point, Emily INTRODUCTION-wise (I might've tipped back a little something this evening, thus the constant asides), I am Alice. I enjoy