The Problem of 'Edwin Drood' Part 19

It is not to be denied that this fitting of everything into its place is at times a little wearisome. 'The construction is most minute and most wonderful,' wrote Anthony Trollope of Wilkie Collins. 'I can never lose the taste of the construction. The author seems always warning me to remember that something happened at exactly half-past two on Tuesday morning, or that a woman disappeared from the road just fifteen yards beyond the fourth milestone.' There is truth in this, but if Anthony Trollope had written a novel of mystery, which perhaps he could never have done, he would have had to take the same path.

Another doctor in _The Moonstone_ tells us that the ignorant distrust of opium in England spreads through all cla.s.ses, so much so, that every doctor in large practice finds himself every now and then obliged to deceive his patients by giving them opium under a disguise. He himself claims that opium saved his life. He suffered from an incurable internal complaint, but he was determined to live in order to provide for a person very dear to him. 'To that all-potent and all-merciful drug I am indebted for a respite of many years from my sentence of death.'

Like Collins, d.i.c.kens was keenly interested in the possibilities of opium. Collins himself was a lavish consumer of the drug, but I do not think it has been suggested that d.i.c.kens himself ever touched it. Nor is it likely, for d.i.c.kens with all his tenseness of nerve was an eminently self-controlled and temperate man. But in _Edwin Drood_ he has inserted a sentence in praise of opium. The opium woman says to Datchery: 'It's opium, deary. Neither more nor less. And it's like a human creetur so far, that you always hear what can be said against it, but seldom what can be said in its praise.' The last sentence was an afterthought on the part of d.i.c.kens. It has been written in.

As to whether Jasper was made ultimately to repeat his crime in any fas.h.i.+on under the influence of opium, it is impossible to say. He was unquestionably more or less under the influence of the drug when he committed it.

The literary men of d.i.c.kens's period were much interested in the action of drugs, in mesmerism, and the like. Elliotson, to whom _Pendennis_ is dedicated, was on intimate terms with d.i.c.kens. d.i.c.kens plainly implies that Crisparkle went to the weir because Jasper willed him to do so.

Collins and d.i.c.kens were both addicted to calling witnesses to their accuracy. At the close of _Armadale_, Collins says: 'Wherever the story touches on questions connected with law, medicine, or chemistry, it has been submitted before publication to the experience of professional men.

The kindness of a friend supplied me with a plan of the doctor's apparatus-I saw the chemical ingredients at work before I ventured on describing the action of them in the closing scenes of this book.' Every one remembers the 'spontaneous combustion' preface to Bleak House. I do not know whether any medical man can be found to confirm the science of _Armadale_, or of _Bleak House_, or of _The Moonstone_. But that is not the question before us. We have only to do with what the novelist himself believed to be a scientific possibility. In _Kenilworth_ {200} Wayland compounds 'the true Orvietan, that n.o.ble medicine which is so seldom found genuine and effective within these realms of Europe.' Scott adds a note: 'Orvietan, or Venice treacle, as it is sometimes called, was understood to be a sovereign remedy against poison; and the reader must be contented, for the time he peruses these pages, to hold the same opinion, which was once universally received by the learned as well as the vulgar.' d.i.c.kens's science must be received in the same manner.

Mr. Crisparkle has one piece of evidence in his memory. 'Long afterwards he had cause to remember' how, when he entered Jasper's rooms and found him asleep by the fire, the choirmaster 'sprang from the couch in a delirious state between sleeping and waking, and crying out, "What is the matter? Who did it?"'

As we have already seen, the gathering of the threads is in the strong hands of Datchery.

As we know, Forster adds that Neville Landless was to have perished in a.s.sisting Tartar finally to unmask and seize the murderer. It will be seen that this part of his testimony is more doubtful than the rest, and cannot, therefore, be so implicitly accepted, but it may well be true.

Melancholy seems to mark Neville Landless for its own, and his pa.s.sion for Rosa is hopeless. If he dies, it is a heavy blow for his devoted sister, who finds her triumph marred by the death of her brother.

Singularly enough, some writers who have hesitated to accept Forster's more expressed testimony make much of the death of Neville Landless and its circ.u.mstances. It need only be pointed out that all this is pure conjecture, however ingenious it may be.

I find no difficulty in believing that d.i.c.kens carried out his plan of making Jasper give in prison a review of his own career. This has been called a poor and conventional idea, but as worked out by d.i.c.kens it would neither have been poor nor conventional. What remains to be told is, I repeat, largely the story of John Jasper's earlier life.

THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD A BIBLIOGRAPHY COMPILED BY B. W. MATZ

THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD. By Charles d.i.c.kens. Parts 16. With 12 ill.u.s.trations by Sir Luke Fildes, R.A. 1870.

HOW MR. SAPSEA CEASED TO BE A MEMBER OF THE EIGHT CLUB. Fragment found by John Forster. See his _Life_ of the Novelist. Added to the 'Biographical,' 'National,' and 'Centenary' editions of the novel.

THE CLOVEN FOOT: An Adaptation of the English Novel to American Scenes, Characters, Customs and Nomenclature. By Orpheus C. Kerr (R. H. Newell).

New York: Carleton. 1870.

THE MYSTERY OF MR. E. DROOD. By Orpheus C. Kerr. An English edition of foregoing, with several minor alterations. London: _The Piccadilly Annual_. 1870.

JOHN JASPER'S SECRET: A Sequel to Charles d.i.c.kens's Unfinished Novel, _The Mystery of Edwin Drood_. By Henry Morford, of New York, and his wife. Issued in parts in America by T. B. Peterson and Bros., Philadelphia, from October 1871 to March 1872; and in England anonymously. An edition of the same work was published in 1901 with the astoundingly false announcement on the t.i.tle-page that the book is by Wilkie Collins and Charles d.i.c.kens the Younger. New York: R. F. Fenno and Co.

THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD. A Play by Walter Stephens. Performed at the Surrey Theatre, 4th November 1871. Chapman and Hall. 1871.

THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD. A drama by G. H. Macdermott. Performed at the Britannia Theatre, 22nd July 1872.

THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD COMPLETE. Part the Second. 'By the Spirit Pen of Charles d.i.c.kens, through a Medium.' Published at Brattleborough, Vermont, U.S.A. 1873.

THE GREAT MYSTERY SOLVED: Being a Sequel to _The Mystery of Edwin Drood_.

By Gillan Vase. 3 vols. London: Remington and Co. 1878.

LE CRIME DE JASPER. Traduit de l'Anglais. Dentu. Paris: 1879.

ALIVE OR DEAD: A Drama. By Robert Hall. Performed at the Park Theatre, Camden Town, 3rd May 1880.

WATCHED BY THE DEAD: A Loving Study of d.i.c.kens's Half-Told Tale. By Richard A. Proctor. London: W. H. Allen and Co. 1887. (The genesis of this 'loving study' appeared as articles in the _Belgravia Magazine_, June 1878; _Leisure Readings_, 1882; and _Knowledge_, 1884; over the pseudonym of 'Thomas Foster.')

HOW 'EDWIN DROOD' WAS ILl.u.s.tRATED. By Alice Meynell. _Century Magazine_, February 1884.

THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD: Suggestions for a Conclusion. _Cornhill Magazine_, March 1884.

THE WELFLEET MYSTERY (An Outgrowth of d.i.c.kens's Last Work). By Mrs. C.

A. Read. _The Weekly Budget_, 1885.

A NOVELIST'S FAVOURITE THEME. _Cornhill Magazine_, January 1886.

MYSTERY ON MYSTERY. By Edward Salmon. _Belgravia_, September 1887.

THE DROOD MYSTERY AGAIN. By Robert Allbut. _Daily Union_, U.S.A.

(letter dated 21st August 1893).

CLUES TO THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD. By J. c.u.ming Walters. London: Chapman and Hall, Ltd. 2s. 6d. 1905.

SOLVING 'THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD.' By B. W. Matz. _d.i.c.kensian_, July 1905.

THE MYSTERY OF DATCHERY. By William Archer. _Morning Leader_, 15th, 22nd and 29th July. Replies by J. c.u.ming Walters, 17th and 26th July 1905.

THE DROOD CASE. By Andrew Lang. _Morning Post_, 28th July 1905.

THE PLOT OF EDWIN DROOD. By Andrew Lang. _Academy_, 29th July 1905.

Reply by J. c.u.ming Walters, 12th August 1905.

THE CLEARING OF A MYSTERY. By Harry Beswick. _Clarion_, 28th July 1905.

THE DROOD CASE. By J. c.u.ming Walters. _Morning Post_, 8th August 1905.

THE HISTORY OF A MYSTERY: A Review of the Solutions to 'Edwin Drood.' By George F. Gadd. _d.i.c.kensian_, September to December 1905.

INTERVIEW BETWEEN DR. WATSON AND SHERLOCK HOLMES ON THE DROOD MYSTERY.

By Andrew Lang. _Longman's Magazine_ (At the Sign of the s.h.i.+p), September 1905.

THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD. By Hammond Hall. _d.i.c.kensian_, September 1905.

MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD. By H. H. F. _Academy_, 26th August. By J.

c.u.ming Walters and Andrew Lang, 9th September 1905.

BAZZARD AND HELENA. By H. H. F. _Academy_, 9th September 1905.

d.i.c.kENS MEMORIES, WITH SOME REFLECTIONS ON THE EDWIN DROOD MYSTERY. By Percy Fitzgerald. _Daily Chronicle_, 20th September 1905.

THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD: More Opinions Regarding the Ident.i.ty of Datchery. By Dr. Blake Odgers, J. c.u.ming Walters, Willoughby Matchett and A. Bawtree. _Daily Chronicle_, 23rd September 1905.