Solve the Mystery of Edwin Drood

5 January 2015

Did Rosa do it with the candlestick in the conservatory? Or was it Jasper in the kitchen with the lead piping? The general public has the chance to solve one of the biggest literary murder mysteries ever – the fate of Dickens’ Edwin Drood. Dickens’ unfinished novel, The Mystery of Edwin Drood, isn’t complete because the author passed away and now enthusiasts are coming forward to suggest the most likely ending to the Victorian novel.

The University of Buckingham has set up a website which contains a scanned edition of the author’s novel, which was published in monthly instalments in 1870. There are also character profiles and summaries of the plot on the website. Members of the public are invited to offer their views as part of the biggest ever survey of possible endings.

Experts on Charles Dickens will reveal which is the most popular suggested finish in April when a new exhibition about the book, organised by The University of Buckingham, launches at The Charles Dickens Museum, London. The exhibition will feature extracts from the University’s internationally-acclaimed Dickens Journals Online (DJO) project, which has made available online editions of Dickens’ weekly magazines, Household Words and All the Year Round.

There is a blog linked to the Drood Inquiry website and people can chat to each other about the book and possible endings via a global online forum. University of Buckingham lecturer Peter Orford, who is behind the Internet Dickens’ murder mystery survey, said: “People are asking each other – where’s the body? Because it’s unfinished the book sparks debate.”

“At the time there was an awful lot of excitement as the story was being published in instalments monthly. Various people wrote endings – one was even supposedly written by a spirit medium in contact with the ghost of Dickens himself.”