It is important to lay stress upon this. An able reviewer in the Athenæum, 1st April 1911, says: ‘The book is still in its infancy. Its predecessor, Our Mutual Friend, attained to some sixty-seven chapters, Great Expectations to fifty-nine, Bleak House to sixty-six. There is no strain on probability in supposing that Edwin Drood might, in happier circumstances, have reached something like these proportions.’ The fact is that the book was to be completed in twelve numbers, and we have six.
In the first part of this volume I have dealt with the materials for a solution.
In the second part, I have used the materials and the internal evidence of the book, and attempted an answer to the questions.
PART I.—THE MATERIALS FOR A SOLUTION
CHAPTER I—THE TEXT OF EDWIN DROOD
The materials for the solution of the ‘Edwin Drood’ problems must first of all be found in the text of the unfinished volume. Hitherto it has not been observed that the book we have is not precisely what it was when Dickens left it. Three parts had been issued by Dickens himself. After his death the remaining three parts were issued by John Forster. Dickens had corrected his proofs up to and including chapter xxi. The succeeding chapters xxii. and xxiii. are untouched. I discovered to my great surprise on examining the proofs in the Forster Collection that Forster had in every case ignored Dickens’s erasures, and had replaced all the omitted passages in the text. Thus it happens that we do not read the book as Dickens intended us to read it. We have passages which on consideration he decided not to print. It is unnecessary to criticise the action of Forster, but it seems clear that he should at least have given warning to the reader. I now print the passages erased by Dickens and restored by Forster.
SENTENCES AND PARTS OF SENTENCES ERASED BY DICKENS
In Chapter xvii.:—
an eminent public character, once known to fame as Frosty faced Fogo,
by, always, as it seemed, on errands of antagonistically snatching something from somebody, and never giving anything to anybody.