The Title was Edwin Drood at first and then changed to The Mistery of Edwin Drood. It maybe a mystery because it is unsolved but certainly not unfinished. If Dickens knew that the book might not be finished, he would have written little by little while revising every bit as he goes, given the detail obssessed person that he is. But he didn't; he wrote the last big chunk of story with less than half of the vigor than he did in the beginning. I think he could do better than that.
Dickens alludes to things being 'unfinished' several times in The Mystery of Edwin Drood. Firstly, the title asserts that it is a mystery and therefore unsolved, the portrait of Rosa is unfinished and so is Durdles house described as unfinished. I wonder if Dickens began this project with an awareness that he would not be able to finish it and therefore was paving the way for his final dramatic exit. If this is the case then attempts made to write an ending are an insult because it may have been his intention that readers make up their own minds as they read it. I say this because the late Victorian period is seen as a period of anxiety and change. Perhaps the unfinished element of Dickens last work is a statement in itself about the need for neat endings and security of knowledge in a period unable to offer these answers.
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