The Mystery of Edwin Drood [VINTAGE 1941]

Dickens, Charles

Published by The Heritage Press, New York, 1941

About this Item

Fine condition gray cloth boards with maroon front cover decorations and lettering. Includes A Note on the Text of This Edition; List of Color Plates; Introduction by Vincent Starrett, Chicago, 1941; Appendix 1: The Sapsea Fragment; Appendix 2: The Original Cover Design, by Charles Collins, of The Mystery of Edwin Drood; Appendix 3: Jasper's Gatehouse; and Appendix 4: A Selected Bibliography. Illustrated with color plates, black-and-white drawings and a color plate frontispiece. "It has been urged fy a number of distinguished critics, with considerable show of reason, that certain lines and passages, which since 1870 have been part of the standard text of Edwin Drood, would not have appeared in the printed book if Dickens had lived to finish his story and superintend its publication. Careful study of the original manuscript, by Professor Henry Jackson of Cambridge and Sir William Robertson Nicoll, has revealed a numjber of significant erasures, some of which at least wold appear to indicate the author's fear that he was prematurely betraying too much of his secret. All these occur in the final chapters, beginning with Chapter Seventeen, which Dickens had not finally revised and which were sent to press by John Forster after the author's death. Forster, eager to preserve his frien's least word about the unfinished mystery, ignored the blackouts; in consequence of which, it is contended, passages never intended to be read became part of the printed tale. No edition of Edwin Drood been printed with these lines and paragraphs omitted, as possibly inteded by Dickens; nor has it seemed the part of wisdom in this edition to omit them and thereby to precipitate an international uproar. Since it is obviously important to students of the mystery that these passages be indicated, however, they have been indicated in this edition for the first time in the history of the book. To have set them off by the simple expedient of italics would have been to confuse them with Dickens's own italics, while brackets would have been both confusing and ugly; and so they have been indicated by underlines which readers unconcerned about detection - if any such there be - may ignore or curse at their discretion. It is believed that amajority of readers will welcome the innovation and the opportunity to play detective in a fascinating game that has been in progress now for more than seventy years. It is to be remembered, however, aht not all the passages intended by Dickens for elision necessarily contain clues to the mystery; it is always possible that he was merely dissatisfied at the moment with what he had written, for reasons having no bearing on the solution. Also, two typographical errors, which had been slavishly copied by printers and acquiesced-in by editors since 1870, have been corrected in this edition which, the publishers and the editor hope, may now assume an interesting status of its own - that of the first definitive edition of The Mystery of Edwin Drood.- Vincent Starrett, from A Note on the Text. Seller Inventory # 007333

Bibliographic Details

Title: The Mystery of Edwin Drood [VINTAGE 1941]

Publisher: The Heritage Press, New York

Publication Date: 1941

Binding: Hardcover

Illustrator: Shinn, Everett

Condition: Fine