Attempts to understand and assess what we have of Edwin Drood should be directed to its beginning, not its end - to its genesis and, if possible, to the growth of its roots in the author's mind, rather than in largely fruitless speculation as to the ultimate working out of his plot and the manner of presentation of his denouement. But we have no reason to believe that Edwin Drood was being composed with less artistry and care than was given to its predecessors, and it seems fair to assume that, completed, the novel would have been as carefully integrated as (for example) Hard Times and Great Expectations, with the end and the beginning seen reflected in each other and nearly every part bearing some relation to the whole. So if the fragment we have (almost half the book) is worth study at all, some speculation as to the ultimate development of its stated themes is essential. But I have done my best to avoid pure conjecture and to base such speculation or guesswork on internal and external evidence. My concern has also been to show why Dickens would have wanted to write this book, at the time of life he had reached when the idea came to him. His first great success was written for money; offered fourteen guineas monthly for twenty-four pages of print, he found the 'emolument too tempting to resist' (Letters, Pilgrim Edition, Vol. 1 p. 128) and hit the jackpot with The Pickwick Papers. Thirty-four years later, the money motive, while not completely absent, can be written off as a mainspring; he was well-off and famous, had an intensely personal relationship with his public and, with fourteen novels behind him (the last six, from Bleak House on, conveying acid comments on the ethos of one facet or other

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of contemporary society), had no need and probably no desire, to write a pot-boiler.
   To any student of his life and works it must seem very doubtful if the mere writing of a story, the gradual outlining of a plot (however cleverly crafted) over a period of twelve months, would have been enough to set him to work again after a break of over four years. Something more was to be achieved; and I have advanced the theory that the plot he had conceived was one which would give him the double opportunity of reiterating his own religious faith and of attacking the half-hearted teaching and presentation of what he saw as the true gospel by the Established Church.
   It has seemed to me that this, if accepted, would answer many questions of theme, symbol and construction in the projected novel: why the Cathedral dominates the book, why images of death and corruption, resurrection and hope, constantly appear, and why the Cathedral tower is used for the murder. This last does entail a little speculation; but this and a passing allusion to the possibility of Helena Landless having some ability in mesmerism are the only references I have made to Dickens's possible ending. My single real conjecture concerns his possible beginning: the corruption of the character of Jasper .
   To many people Edwin Drood has been only a puzzle; the puzzle is fascinating enough, but study of the fragment brings more satisfying rewards: fine writing amounting to prose-poetry in many places, controlled and disciplined character-drawing, and a firm grasp of the essential purposes of integration in a novel. Dickens's body was weak and ailing at the time of this last composition; but his mind was at full strength .