The Mystery of Edwin Drood
Chapman & Hall, 1870.
First edition. Finely bound by Bayntun in recent full red morocco, with raised bands, gilt borders to covers and titles to spine. Gilt cartouche depicting Dickens in an oval frame to the upper cover and his signature embossed in gilt to the lower cover. All edges gilt. Thirteen full page illustrations by S.L. Fildes. A fine, clean copy in a handsome binding.
Dickens began the writing of what would be his final novel in the summer of 1869. It would appear that the work gave the author more trouble than any of his former novels and he revised and corrected his work continually, sometimes entirely remodelling sections. The first monthly part was issued in April 1870, but at the time Dickens was suffering periodically from a local haemorrhage and trouble in his foot in between bouts of comparative good health. On 8 June 1870 Dickens's final and fatal seizure came and he passed away peacefully on the following day.
Longfellow, on hearing of Dickens's death wrote to Forster expressing a hope that Drood was finished,
"It is certainly one of his most beautiful works, if not the most beautiful of all, It would be too sad to think the pen had fallen from his hand, and left it incomplete!"
Stock ID: 34543
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