Mystery of Edwin Drood, The [and] John Jasper's Secret

London: Chapman and Hall, 1870. First Edition of Edwin Drood and The First 'Conclusion' - John Jasper's Secret
Uniformly Bound by Zaehnsdorf

DICKENS, Charles. The Mystery of Edwin Drood. With Twelve Illustrations by S.L. Fildes, and a Portrait. London: Chapman and Hall, 1870.

First edition in book form of Dickens's final work, left unfinished at the time of his death.

Octavo (8 3/16 x 5 1/4 inches; 208 x 133 mm.). vii, [1, "Illustrations"], 190 pp. Frontispiece portrait of Dickens ("Engraved by J.H. Baker, from a Photograph taken in 1868, by Mason & Co."), wood-engraved vignette title by J. Brown, and twelve wood-engraved plates, two by the firm of Dalziel Brothers, ten by Charles Roberts, all after Samuel Luke Fildes. Occasional marginal staining, wood-engraved plate facing p. 98 with small (1/4 inch) marginal tear. A very good copy.

Together with:

[EDWIN DROOD], MORFORD, Henry, attributed to]. John Jasper's Secret: Being a Narrative of Certain Events Following and Explaining "The Mystery of Edwin Drood." With Twenty Illustrations. London: Publishing Offices, 1872.

First English edition in book form.

Octavo (7 7/8 x 5 1/4 inches; 201 x 133 mm.). [iv], 252 pp. Twenty wood-engraved plates.

Uniformly bound ca. 1920 by Zaehnsdorf for the Gardenside Bookshop, Boston (stamp-signed in black on verso of front free- endpapers). Full polished tan calf, covers decoratively bordered in gilt. Gilt corner pieces with small floral onlays in black morocco, decorative center pieces stamped in blind. Spines with five raised band decoratively tooled in gilt in compartments with small brown morocco floral onlays. Edwin Drood with two brown morocco labels lettered in gilt, John Jasper's Secret with one brown morocco label lettered in gilt. Gilt ruled board edges, decorative turn-ins, marbled end-papers, top edge gilt. Joints a little rubbed but quite sound. A very attractive example housed together in a felt-lined fitted marbled board slipcase.

"When Dickens died on June 9, 1870, he had completed only enough of his manuscript to make up six instalments, leaving unfinished a work which had commanded the widest attention for its opening numbers, and which promised to be one of his most effective and popular books. Although only three parts had been issued prior to his death, publication of the work continued, and on completion with Part 6 of all available material, the vast army of readers was left high and dry as to ‘The Mystery.' The Author during the writing of the story never disclosed the ultimate development of his plot" (Hatton and Cleaver).

John Jasper's Secret was the first of many attempts to solve The Mystery of Edwin Drood. The work was written by the New York journalist Henry Morford (1823-1881) and his wife.

Smith, 16; Gimbel H330; Sadleir 705a; Not in Sadleir.