In the middle of the 19th century, Charles Dickens was a superstar in England. He was the country's most popular novelist and his fame was spreading in the United States. He could do no wrong. These were the days when printed stories were a prime source of entertainment to a vast slice of the general public and Dickens was the supreme story writer of the lot. His novels were usually published in serial form with people buying the first part one week and the subsequent chapters in the weeks that followed. Dickens was clever enough to include enough cliffhangers and plot twits in his tales to hold people's interest until the end of the story. When news leaked out that he was planning to kill off his young heroine in his hit novel The Old Curiosity Shop in 1841, Dickens was swamped with letters begging him to save her.
Dickens had his reading public just where he wanted them.
The first episodes of Dickens' The Mystery of Edwin Drood appeared in 1870. It was set in a small English cathedral town called Cloisterham and, like any other Dickens novel, it had lots of memorable characters.
With Edwin Drood, Dickens intended to write a brilliant mystery story full of suspense and secrets. The first six parts of the story were a great success and then the unthinkable happened. Dickens suddenly died. Readers were left hanging in mid-air, and because Dickens had left no notes behind him, no-one knew how he intended to conclude the tale.
When the story opens, our hero, Edwin Drood, 21, is about to leave England to work as an engineer in Egypt. Much to the hidden regret of his uncle John Jasper, the cathedral choirmaster, Edwin is engaged to beautiful Rosa Budd, an orphan whose guardian, Mr Grewgious, is a wealthy local resident. Jasper secretly smokes opium and he spends long, lonely hours in the hideous den of an old hag called Princess Puffer.
The old woman hates Jasper and listens to his drug-induced ramblings with great attention. What does Princess Puffer know about Jasper and why does she have such an interest in his life in Cloisterham?