Edwin Drood - Reading Schedule/Background

[Lynnm]

I'm a bit sad...our last Dickens book.

Here's the reading schedule for The Mystery of Edwin Drood:

April 17-23 - Chapters 1-5
April 24-30 - Chapters 6-11
May 1-7 - Chapters 12-17
May 8-14 - Chapters 18-23

Let me know what you think.

[Renee]

Fabulous. Thanks, Lynn!

[Hedi]

I cannot believe that 5 years have passed by. I had just joined the group when it was at the end of the Pickwick Papers and was not quite ready to join the discussion for Oliver Twist due to my intercontinental move then, and here we are shortly before our last novel. Time flies... I have really enjoyed our Dickens project and will definitely miss it.

[Frances, Moderator]

I'm in for this-it has been a great experience reading from TOCS to this point with all of you.

[Jon]

And I joined the group too late for any Dickens except Drood.

Any advice about a particularly excellent edition or about whether I should attempt to listen or read?

[Robin P, Moderator]

I'm curious if there is a standard version of what the end of the book would have been based on Dickens' notes.

[Hedi]

I have bot checked anything about editions yet. However, I do own a copy of the Everyman's library edition, which has an appendix by Chesterton.

[Lynnm]

Jon wrote: "And I joined the group too late for any Dickens except Drood.

Any advice about a particularly excellent edition or about whether I should attempt to listen or read?"

I always use the Barnes and Noble editions. They have footnotes, which are helpful. And certainly not expensive.

[Lynnm]

Robin wrote: "I'm curious if there is a standard version of what the end of the book would have been based on Dickens' notes."

All of the versions that I looked at do not have an ending. They just have what Dickens wrote. And that's what we'll be doing here because any other ending truly would be guess work, and not Dickens.

[Mary Lou]

My library has three editions: one as Dickens left it; one with an ending that takes the form of a transcript from a court trial (I can't figure out who wrote the ending); and one that is called "The D Case: The Truth About the Mystery of Edwin Drood" which I assumed would be an analysis with information on Dickens' notes, etc., but is actually a work of fiction in which famous literary detectives gathering to hear the story (included within the text of the greater novel) and solve the crime. An interesting way to present it, but I think Lynnm is right -- we should stick with canon and not speculation, except for our own after we've read it.

I look forward to it - this will be my first Dickens with a GR group that I haven't previously read.

[Lynnm]

ONE more week until we start Edwin Drood! I've already started reading it, and it's killing me not to be able to read it straight through.