The murder-mystery part of Edwin Drood
can be an entertaining and sometimes fascinating
problem. Whether he was murdered, whether his
uncle did it and if so how, and what exactly
happened in and around Cloisterham Cathedral on
that Christmas Eve are now very old puzzles and
will probably never be solved. If by some freak
discovery they were, it is not very likely that
the reputation of Dickens as a novelist would be
much enhanced. As a mere mystery-maker he was not
brilliant. His previous attempts in this
direction are unsubtle; in Bleak House,
for example, Lady Dedlock, George Rouncewell and
Mademoiselle Hortense, all three on the staircase
at Lincoln's Inn within moments of each other at
the time of Mr. Tulkinghorn's murder, are a very
vague bunch of suspects by to-day's standards.
Dickens was a pioneer in the detective business;
he had no Conan Doyle, Sayers or Christie to
teach him the art of alibi-breaking or end-of-tale
twisting so expertly practised by the early
twentieth-century detective-story writers; it
seems probable that he would not have approved if
he had. He writes in 1868 to Wills, his sub-editor,
on the subject of Wilkie Collins's story, The
Moonstone, then appearing in weekly parts in
All the Year Round: 'I quite agree with
you about the "Moonstone" .The
construction is wearisome beyond belief, and there
is a vein of obstinate conceit in it which makes
enemies of readers' (my italics). (1)
Only Dickens himself could say
exactly what he meant by' a vein of obstinate
conceit' ; but on re-reading Collins's novel one
does to some extent receive the impression of an
omnipotent master-hand guiding the various
characters along pre-ordained paths to a
predestined end - rather in
13
the manner of a somewhat
opinionated dragoman leading a party of tourists
through an unknown country. The best story-tellers
are those who give the impression of being as
deeply involved in the narrative as the listeners.
But Collins is not a listener - he always knows
what is to happen next. He constantly uses
phrases like: 'I shall have a word or two to say
to you on that subject presently', or 'You shall
hear, Mr. Blake.' Moreover, he uses a cunning
technique of planting evidence at the beginning
of the story which the reader is intended to
overlook or misinterpret but which later turns
out to have had a direct bearing on the plot.
This technique, which he invented and which had
developed into a sort of contest between the
author and his readers by the 1920s, would hardly
appeal to Dickens. He would see it not as a
challenge to the reader's intellectual alertness,
but as a rather offensive assertion of the writer's
intellectual superiority. 'I gave you hints',
says the writer, 'on the solution to this problem,
in Chapter 2, and further hints in Chapter 22.
But you were too dense to see them.' Dickens's
intensely personal relationship with his readers,
particularly at this time, would preclude his
risking any such offence himself.
It is not difficult to believe that
Dickens's closest interest in Edwin Drood
was that of a novelist rather than that of a
story writer, detective or otherwise. The mystery
was very much of secondary importance to
novelistic development of character or
circumstance. To use a phrase from the world of
detective fiction: if there were to be a murder,
the emphasis would be very much more on motive
than on means and opportunity. In making any
attempt therefore to understand and appreciate
the art used in the fragment we have, the first
essential is to regard it as part of a novel and
not as part of a mere story. But a novel is an
integrated whole, and we have in this case only
the first half. This seems to deny the
possibility of any kind of final judgement of the
artist's achievement. As Sir Angus Wilson writes
in The World of Charles Dickens (2):
Not very much that is meaningful
can be said about the totality of Edwin Drood,
because Dickens was the sort of artist whose
parts (whatever the contrary appearance) are
14
so interrelated
that only the whole gives the key to the whole.
Dr. Q. D. Leavis, in Dickens the Novelist, (3) thinks the totality,
had it existed, would have been hardly worth
exploring:
Dr. Leavis thus dismisses the fragment as part of
what would have been merely a sensation novel
after the style or method of Wilkie Collins, with
a minimum of 'moral interest' and a heavy
emphasis on a dramatic or melodramatic
catastrophe, suitable possibly for adaptation for
the stage. She has indeed sensed the underlying
conception of evil power in Jasper; but to
discard hypnotism and only replace it with'
creepy powers of an abnormal kind' is not very
helpful. And I cannot see that a situation in
which an uncle, only six years older than his
nephew, murders that nephew, is devoid of moral
interest. I cannot help thinking that Shakespeare
might have made something of it. Obviously it
would be the treatment such a theme received at
the hands of the artist that would made the
difference; and it seems to me that the critic
here is focussed on the storyline rather than on
the poetic imagery which is the secret of the
attraction of
15
this fragment and makes it
readable, unfinished though it be, again and
again.
Never since the days of his first
real novel (Oliver Twist, 1837-38) had
Dickens been known to offer his readers a story
without some underlying social or moral comment
as part of the tapestry. I see no reason why he
should suddenly discard the method and manner of
a lifetime and write a sensational pot-boiler.
There may have been some jealousy of the success
of Collins in The Moonstone; but one
feels that rather than imitate anyone else's work
he would have gone back to the blacking factory
of his youth and stuck labels on bottles until he
died. He thought Collins's work inferior to his
own, and time has justified him. Edwin Drood
was designed as a novel concerned with the
psychology of a crime rather than as a puzzle
about the crime itself. It is hardly possible to
read it without feeling that the author's main
interest was concentrated on his creation of the
sombre central character, John Jasper,
choirmaster and highly gifted musician and lay
precentor to the Cathedral of Cloisterham (Rochester
thinly disguised). It is not enough to say that
we have here half a portrait. So far as the inner
workings of his mind and its motives are
concerned, we have practically no portrait at all.
Edgar Johnson, in Charles Dickens: His
Tragedy and Triumph, (4)
has remarked on this:
It is significant that he is the
single major character of whose thoughts we are
told nothing. Only when he starts awake from a
nightmare and when the opium woman draws
ambiguous revelations from him while he is lying
in a drugged state does he give any unintended
glimpse of the fiery furnace of his heart. When
he knows what he is saying, almost all his words
seem moves in his hidden plans. Not until Edwin
has vanished does Jasper ever voice his feelings
to Rosa, and even then he is careful to ensure
that nobody else can hear.
The reader is allowed into Jasper's
mind only to a very limited extent: at the
moments noted above by Johnson, and at the
opening of the book as he recovers from an opium
dream. At that time he is clearly anxious to
assure himself that no 'sleeptalking' has
betrayed his secret thoughts. He tries, with some
violence, to induce speech in the Chinaman and
the Lascar, and the result satisfies him:
16
There has been
wild chattering and clattering enough between
them, but to no purpose. When any distinct word
has been flung into the air, it has had no sense
or sequence. Wherefore 'unintelligible!' is again
the comment of the watcher, made with some
reassured nodding of his head, and a gloomy smile.
(Ch. I, p.3)
The key to an understanding of
Dickens's craftsmanship in the creation of Jasper
is the word used by Johnson in the quotation
above: 'ambiguous'. Jasper is both ambiguous and
enigmatic; his words and actions are capable of
more than one interpretation. Felix Aylmer (5) is able to devote a
whole book to pronouncing him innocent of the
murder, while Howard Duffield and Edmund Wilson (6) have believed him to
be a member of the Indian sect of Thugs. All that
can be said with complete certainty is that in
the six numbers published we have neither the
whole of the plot, nor the whole of the character
of Jasper as it must have been envisaged by
Dickens when he began to write the novel. Clearly
the character is to be developed further in the
later stages of the book. The question of how
this would have been done can be best answered by
referring back to the author himself: by looking
at his previous work in comparable situations and
by noting any comments he has been known to make
as to his methods.
In a letter to Wilkie Collins (7) dated October 1859
Dickens wrote, in reference to a suggestion by
Collins on the working out of A Tale of Two
Cities:
...the Doctor's character, as
affected by his imprisonment ...of itself would,
to my thinking, render it quite out of the
question to put the reader inside of him before
the proper time, in respect of matters that were
dim to himself through being, in a diseased way,
morbidly shunned by him. I think the business
of art is to lay all that ground carefully, but
with the care that conceals itself - to show, by
a backward light, what everything has been
working to - but only to suggest, until the
fulfilment comes. These are the ways of
Providence, of which all art is but a little
imitation. (My italics)
'Only to suggest, until the fulfilment comes.' In
that phrase lies the difference between Dickens's
work in Edwin Drood and Collins's work
in The Moonstone. Collins lays down
17
facts and actual events, in such
a way as to mislead the reader into coming to a
false conclusion or to complete puzzlement;
Dickens lays down behaviour patterns for his
characters which turn out later to have been
capable of more than one interpretation. The
ambiguity is accompanied by cryptic hints, and
the motivating force of the behaviour (the
character's inner thoughts) is not revealed until
the final surprise. Old Martin Chuzzlewit
pretends to be senile; he wishes to expose and
punish Pecksniff. Mr. Boffin pretends to be
miserly in order to punish Wegg and read a lesson
to Bella Wilfer. With Collins, in both The
Woman in White and The Moonstone,
the mystery is all important; one has a strong
feeling that the mystery has been devised first
and the characters and environment cut and
polished to suit it. Once the puzzle is
elucidated towards the end, the style and
meticulous plotting begin to seem strained. The
reader's interest having been sustained by means
of mystery through seven-eighths of a novel, such
interest collapses on the presentation of the
solution, unless, like the later detective-story
writers, the author places it with a conjuror's
flourish on the very last page. In the only novel
by Dickens comparable as to size and construction
where mystery to a certain extent exists (Great
Expectations) the solution - that Magwitch
is the source of Pip's fortune - is revealed with
still a third of the book to go. There is not the
slightest sense of anti-climax after this
revelation, as the interest hitherto has not been
centred on the money but on the character and
behaviour of Pip under its influence. We are
still interested in Pip after his surprise,
whereas Franklin Blake and Walter Hartright
become rather flat and dull once their quest is
ended, their mystery solved. Collins was a most
highly skilled craftsman; his craft indeed in his
own particular genre (the mystery or sensation
novel) has been said to amount to genius. But
Dickens was an artist, and his art did amount to
genius. The Mystery alone would not have been
enough for him in Edwin Drood any more
than it was in Bamaby Rudge or Great
Expectations, and those who think that
Dickens was attempting only a melodramatic
sensation-novel in imitation or emulation (!) of
his protege Collins are mistaken. Dr. Leavis is
certainly right in saying that we have lost
nothing of value by The Mystery of Edwin
18
Drood's not having been
revealed to us, if she means the mystery only.
But in the novel, Edwin Drood, it seems
to me that, even with only half of it in our
hands, there are indications and pointers in the
text of enough strength (to say nothing of such
external evidence as exists) to justify the
opinion that Dickens's powers in this his last
work were quite undiminished, burning as strongly
as ever, and with this addition: that the poetic
imagination which had created the cold omniscient
portion of Bleak House and the hot tortured soul
of Bradley Headstone had now been subjected to a
self-imposed discipline, restraining the over-generous
writing of the past and effectively indicating
with wonderful economy of word and phrase, the
complex pattern and inner meaning of the work he
had conceived.
To draw attention to such a pattern
and its meaning, certain assumptions as to his
ultimate intentions must be made. As there is
hardly a scrap of evidence on this subject which
has not at some time been the subject of special
pleading in support of some theory or other, and
as Dickens himself, apart from one or two
pointers in his number plans, left only one
indication (to Forster verbally and therefore
hearsay) as to how he intended to work out the
plot and hardly any as to the thematic pattern of
the book, it becomes necessary to define one's
position in setting out, and to indicate clearly
which evidence (particularly that of
contemporaries or near contemporaries) one
accepts. It is unfortunate that the suspicion and
scepticism which have been thrown on the
testimony of some contemporary witnesses to
Dickens's intentions should make it necessary to
call acceptance of their words an 'assumption';
but there it is. The evidence to which I refer -
extremely well documented and no doubt known
already to most readers - and which I fully
accept, is the following:
(1) John Forster, The Life of Charles Dickens,
Vol. 3, Ch. 18:
[Dickens writing to Forster) ...'I
laid aside the fancy I told you of, and have a
very curious and new idea for my new story. Not a
communicable idea (or the interest of the book
would be gone), but a very strong one, though
difficult to work.' The story, I learnt
immediately afterward, was to be that of the
murder of a nephew by his uncle; the originality
of which was to consist in the review of the
murderer's career
19
by himself at the
close, when its temptations were to be dwelt upon
as if, not he the culprit, but some other man,
were the tempted. The last chapters were to be
written in the condemned cell, to which his
wickedness, all elaborately elicited from him as
if told of another, had brought him. Discovery by
the murderer of the utter needlessness of the
murder for its object, was to follow hard upon
commission of the deed; but all discovery of the
murderer was to be baffled till towards the close,
when, by means of a gold ring which had resisted
the corrosive effects of the lime into which he
had thrown the body, not only the person murdered
was to be identified, but the locality of the
crime and the man who committed it. So much was
told me before any of the book was written. ...
(2) Charles Dickens, Jnr.: introduction to
Macmillan's edition of Edwin Drood (1923):
It was during the last walk I ever
had with him at Gadshill, and our talk, which had
been principally concerned with literary matters
connected with All the Year Round,
presently drifting to Edwin Drood, my
father asked me if I did not think that he had let
out too much of his story too soon. I assented,
and added, 'Of course, Edwin Drood was murdered?'
Whereupon he turned upon me with an expression of
astonishment at my having asked such an
unnecessary question, and said: 'Of course; what
else do you suppose?'
(3) Kate Perugini (the novelist's daughter)
writing in the Pall Mall magazine of
June 1906, confirms emphatically and
unequivocally the above two statements. A long
quotation from this article will be found in The
Problem of Edwin Drood by W. Robertson
Nicoll (Hodder and Stoughton, 1912).
(4) Charles Collins, first husband of the above
and original designer of the green monthly part
cover for Edwin Drood, in a letter of May 1871 to
Daly, the theatrical impresario:
The late Mr. Dickens communicated
to me some general outlines of his scheme of 'Edwin
Drood', but it was a very early stage in the
development of the idea, and what he said
bore mainly upon the earlier portions of the tale.
Edwin Drood was never to reappear,
he having been murdered by Jasper. The girl Rosa
not having been really attached to Edwin, was not
to lament his loss very long, and was I believe
to admit the sailor Mr. Tartar to supply his
place. It was intended that Jasper himself should
urge on the
20
search after Edwin
Drood and the pursuit of the murderer, thus
endeavouring to direct suspicion from himself,
the real murderer. This is indicated in the
design, on the right side of the cover, of the
figures hurrying up the spiral staircase
emblematical of a pursuit. They are led on by
Jasper, who points unconsciously to his own
figure in the drawing at the head of the title.
...(Quoted in the Clarendon edn., p. 238)
(5) Dickens's number plans: for No.1, Chapter 2,
he notes: 'Murder very far off.' For No.3,
Chapter 12, he notes: 'Lay the ground for the
manner of the murder, to come out at last.'
(6) Sir Luke Fildes, illustrator (including
alterations to the Collins cover design), in a
letter to The Times dated 27 October
1905:
...[Dickens] particularly
described John Jasper as wearing a neckerchief of
such dimensions as to go twice round the neck,
and I asked him if he had any special reason for
the alteration of Jasper's attire, and, if so, I
submitted I ought to know. He, Dickens, appeared
for the moment to pe disconcerted by my remark,
and said something meaning he was afraid he was 'getting
on too fast' and revealing more than he meant at
that early stage, and after a short silence,
cogitating, he suddenly said, 'Can you keep, a
secret?' I assured him he could rely on me. He
then said, '1 must have the double neck-tie! It
is necessary, for Jasper strangles Edwin Drood
with it.'
Here are six people, one of them the
author himself and the other five closely related
to or connected with him, all declaring, without
any particular pressure upon them to do so, that
this is the story of the murder of a nephew by
his uncle. To deny, in the face of that evidence,
that a murder took place or was intended to take
place seems to me an exercise in perversity.
I am therefore 'assuming' in what
follows that the author's intentions were that
Edwin Drood was to be murdered by his uncle John
Jasper; that his body was to be thrown into lime
to hasten decomposition and therefore decrease
the risk of detection; that the plan was to be
defeated ultimately because the murderer was
unaware that the victim had about his body an
identifiable ring which would resist the
corrosion of the lime. These are the bare
mechanics of the plot, and
21
it should be made clear
immediately that I do not consider they were the
'curious and new idea' Dickens referred to in his
letter to Forster quoted above. That idea ('the
originality of which was to consist in the review
of the murderer's career by himself. ..') would
relate to the character and psychology of Jasper
rather than to the mechanics of his detection and
discovery .
But those mechanics are nevertheless
of the greatest importance; they have another and
symbolic meaning, Comparison may be made here
with Bleak House and the death of Krook
by spontaneous combustion. Accumulated piles of
papers (rags and printers' ink) will generate
heat under their own pressure if neglected for
long enough, which will result in
their ultimate self-destruction by fire. Krook's
death, though ostensibly the result of pouring
gin into his body, symbolizes the slow crushing
power of legal forms and delays, the heat of
resentment generated by them, and is a warning to
the Establishment of what it may expect if it
neglects reform. The scientific plausibility of
the death is, within reasonable limits,
irrelevant to the artist's purpose, though
Dickens defends it stubbornly enough in his
preface. Similarly the scientific plausibility of
the use of lime in Drood is irrelevant. The
symbolism here is that Edwin is to lie concealed
and corrupting in an ancient cathedral, which has
itself become corrupt with the passing of time,
in that its original purpose, the leading of
people in the worship of God through the
Christian faith, has been forgotten, covered up
by a heap of rituals, musical forms, ancient
costumes and even more ancient customs which have
become largely meaningless and are therefore
being carelessly observed. But on the body of
Drood is an indestructible jewel, and in the
heart of the Cathedral lies an equally
indestructible truth, each awaiting resurrection.
If this symbolism be accepted, it
follows that the murder of Edwin is essential to
Dickens's wider purposes. But this is not all.
That the murder takes place in the Cathedral at a
clearly stated time in the Christian Church's
calendar also has its meaning, for I shall
suggest that the underlying social and moral
comment in this novel was to be one of religious
significance. It is merely playing with its
outskirts therefore, missing the central point
altogether, to assume that there was
22
no murder or alternatively to
worry one's head about the manner in which it was
committed, as though these were the essential
elements in the book's construction. This might
well have been the case had Wilkie Collins been
the author; practical clues would have been laid
down in the early numbers, and Jasper's
confession would doubtless have been only one of
a number of such papers written by various
persons leading to the elucidation of the truth.
But Dickens is after a deeper truth than the mere
discovery of a murder mystery; the murder mystery
is only the vehicle on which he mounts a strongly
felt belief. Collins demands the careful perusal
of every line. Dickens asks us to read between
them.
NOTES
1. Charles Dickens as Editor
(Letters to W. H. Wills), ed. R. C. Lehmann (Smith,
Elder & Co., 1912), p. 386.
2. Angus Wilson, The World of Charles Dickens
(Secker & Warburg, 1970), p.291.
3. F. R. and Q. D. Leavis, Dickens the
Novelist (Chat to & Windus, 1970), p.116.
4. Edgar Johnson, Charles Dickens: His
Tragedy and Triumph (Gollancz, 1953), p.
1120.
5. Felix Aylmer, The Drood Case (Hart-Davis,
1964).
6. Edmund Wilson, 'Dickens: The Two Scrooges' in The
Wound and the Bow (Methuen, 1961), p. 76.
7. W. Robertson Nicoll, The Problem of 'Edwin
Drood' (Hodder & Stoughton, 1912), p. 92.