Nonfiction · 1905
The Puzzle of Dickens’s Last Plot
Dickens died in June 1870 leaving The Mystery of Edwin Drood half written, and the question of what he meant to do with it has occupied readers ever since. Lang takes up the case as an investigator: what the surviving numbers actually establish, what the cover designed under Dickens's supervision shows, what he said to his family and his publisher, whether Edwin is dead at all, who Datchery is, and whether the opium woman's part was played out or still to come. He argues against the then-dominant reading, sets out the evidence on each side, and is candid about where the evidence stops.
Andrew Lang published this in 1905. He was among the most prolific critics of his generation and a lifelong reader of detective fiction, and this is the closest he came to writing one.
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About the author
1844–1912 · Victorian
Andrew Lang (1844–1912) was born in Selkirk and educated at St Andrews, Glasgow and Oxford, where he held a fellowship at Merton College before turning to literary journalism in London. A folklorist, classicist, historian, poet and immensely prolific reviewer, he is best remembered as the general editor of the twelve "colour" fairy books (1889–1910), for which his wife, Leonora Blanche Lang, and other collaborators carried out much of the actual translation under his direction. He also wrote fairy tales of his own, among them Prince Prigio, and a History of Scotland.
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