![]() ![]() “The novel itself is a mystery and I’m sure Dickens was aware that people would be trying to get clues and ideas about it from the moment it was published. I suppose it had best be a separate agreement, apart from that which you now have in hand? But you will know all about that,” Dickens writes to Ouvry, adding, enigmatically: “Secrecy is important, and particularly as to the name of the book.” “Here follow the heads of a little agreement I want drawn up in due form between myself and Chapman and Hall. Dated 30 October 1869, the letter had been stored in the basement of the law firm, and sees Dickens giving his terms for the publication of The Mystery of Edwin Drood: £7,500 payment in cash, equivalent to more than £550,000 today.Ĭharles Dickens’s letter to Farrer & Ouvry Photograph: Letter from Charles Dickens/Handout The exhibition also includes a recently discovered letter from Dickens to his lawyer Frederick Ouvry, of the firm of Farrer & Ouvry. Her solution, she added, “still seems plausible enough”. The bestselling novelist said that she first decided she wanted to become a writer when she wrote the paper, and that she was “unbelievably honoured” to have her work shown in the exhibition. “Probably Durdles and Deputy would have discovered the ring … and Jasper, the murderer, would have been brought to justice.”Ĭornwell has loaned the term paper – for which she received an A – to the Charles Dickens Museum as part of a new special exhibition, A Dickens Whodunit: Solving The Mystery of Edwin Drood. In a sense, natural order is restored because it preserves the one shred of evidence that will convict John Jasper,” writes Cornwell. And on the night of Drood’s disappearance, we read that Jasper was indeed wearing a long black scarf.”Ĭornwell ends by stating that Dickens would have had the murderer exposed for his deeds, because Jasper did not realise that Drood had Rosa’s gold engagement ring in his pocket when he killed him and covered his body in quick lime. ![]() She also points to the fact that “before Dickens died he took Luke Fildes, his illustrator, into his confidence and told him to draw Jasper with a double-length scarf because he was going to strangle someone with it. She points to “Dickens’s symbolic use of time” – when Drood’s watch is retrieved from a weir, it has stopped, while a storm the previous evening has torn the hands off the cathedral tower clock. Highlighting her belief that “Jasper’s use of opium could have easily rendered him capable of murder”, Cornwell goes on to show in her paper, The Mystery of John Jasper, “that Drood is definitely dead and that Jasper really did kill him”. Cornwell’s, written for an English class at Davidson College in 1977 and the piece which the bestselling author credits with inspiring her to become a writer, pinpoints Jasper as the villain, taking issue with the assertion by some that Drood does not die, and laying out in meticulously-argued prose just why her theory fits. (The Mystery of Edwin Drood was presented with kind permission from MTI Ltd.According to Louisa Price, curator of the Charles Dickens museum in London, more than 200 different endings have been suggested for the story, from novels to plays, films and musicals. We were so pleased you came and helped us celebrate! Gallery Playerswere thrilled to present our first full show at our new home ‘The Gallery Studio Theatre’ in September 2021. There are many possible suspects and YOU got to decide whodunnit!ĭirected and choreographed by Wade Ablitt with Musical Direction by Olly Wood and featuring a terrific cast of Suffolk’s best and brightest, The Mystery of Edwin Drood was one of the wackiest nights of theatre in a long time! ‘Dickens’ meets ‘ The Play That Goes Wrong’ meets ‘ The Good Old Days’ in this tale of Music Hall, mayhem and MURDER (with a different ending every night!) Now, Miss Bud is, in turn, engaged to Jasper’s nephew, young Edwin Drood. Our title character disappears mysteriously one stormy Christmas Eve, but has Edwin Drood been murdered? The story itself dealt with John Jasper, a Jekyll-and-Hyde Choirmaster who is quite madly in love with his music student, the fair Miss Rosa Bud. This wildly warm-hearted theatrical experience kicked off when the Music Hall Royale (a hilariously loony Victorian musical troupe) staged its flamboyant rendition of an unfinished Dickens mystery The My stery of Edwin Drood. Read the Ipswich Star’s preview here! The solve-it-yourself musical! ![]()
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