Charles Dickens, The Mystery of Edwin Drood (1870)

The Mystery of Edwin Drood by Charles Dickens

Originally published: 1870
Acquired: November 2016
Read: December 2025

Every year over my winter break, I read a Charles Dickens novel I haven't previously read. I've been reading them in order of descending popularity on LibraryThing: this perhaps has been a mistake, since it means the last few years I have been subjected to triumphs like Martin Chuzzlewit and Dombey and Son.

I was thus a bit apprehensive about this year, where I would be reading The Mystery of Edwin Drood. What if it was as bad as the last couple books I'd read? And, famously, incomplete? ("The food here is terrible. And such small portions!")

Well, it seems to me that as he lay dying, Charles Dickens must have gotten a bit of his mojo back, because Edwin Drood was shaping up to be solid mid-tier Dickens. Not necessarily great work, but there are decent characters here and interesting dynamics and some strong descriptive passages. I doubt it would have ended spectacularly (maybe I am wrong), and certainly, books like Dombey and Son show that Dickens can start strong but ultimately fizzle out, but I was into it thus far, read it fairly quickly, and disappointed when it all came to a stop.

Just one Dickens novel to go! 

I read a Charles Dickens novel every year. Next up in sequence: Barnaby Rudge