Dickens's unfinished last novel in the original parts
DICKENS, Charles. The Mystery of Edwin Drood. With illustrations. No. I [-VI]. London: Chapman & Hall. April [- September] 1870.
Six monthly parts as issued, 8vo. Original blue-green printed wrappers; pp. I: 36, 32, [10], with 2 wood-engraved plates by S.L. Fildes; II: 20, 33-64, [4], with 2 plates by Fildes and the very rare advertisement printed on thin cork; III: 20, 65-96, [4], 8, [8], with 2 plates by Fildes; IV: 24, 97-128, [10], with 2 plates by Fildes; V: 20, 129-160, [6], with 2 plates; VI: 18, 161-190, [12], with engraved title page, frontispiece, and 2 plates by Fildes, “Price Eighteenpence” slip pasted to front wrapper; nicking and chips at wrapper extremities, in places strengthened with conservation tape and paper, spines of part I and VI repaired; occasional foxing and dampstaining, light offsetting and marks, but generally good; contemporary ownership signature “Beart” in ink to front wrappers of parts III-VI.
First edition, in the original monthly parts as published between April and September 1870.
Charles Dickens’s last novel, The Mystery of Edwin Drood was left unfinished at his death. Only these six of the projected twelve monthly numbers were written. As Dickens provided no notes on how he planned to conclude the story, there have been many attempts to complete it, the first as early as 1871-2 by New York journalist Henry Morford.
The original advertisements tally with Hatton and Cleaver’s Bibliography of the Periodical Works of Charles Dickens, except for the lack of an eight-page Chapman and Hall list in Part V, and a six-page Wilcox and Gibbs advertisement and a slip in Part VI. The advertisements for Part II include the rare Gaimes, Sanders & Nicol “Cork Hats” sheet.
Hatton & Cleaver, pp. 373-84.
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