Name: The Mystery of Edwin Drood (Everyman's Library (Cloth))
Price: 22.19 EUR
Availability: InStock
Author: Charles Dickens
ISBN: 9781400043286

portada The Mystery of Edwin Drood (Everyman's Library (Cloth))

The Mystery of Edwin Drood (Everyman's Library (Cloth))

Type

Physical Book

Author

Charles Dickens

Introduction by

Peter Washington

Publisher

Everyman's Library

Year

2004

Language

English

Pages

336

Format

Hardcover

Dimensions

21.1 x 12.7 x 2.6 cm

Weight

0.48 kg.

ISBN

140004328X

ISBN13

9781400043286

Synopsis "The Mystery of Edwin Drood (Everyman's Library (Cloth)) "

The final, unfinished novel of Charles Dickens that is in many ways his most intriguing--a gripping, haunting masterpiece that foreshadows the detective stories of Conan Doyle and the nightmarish novels of Kafka.The Mystery of Edwin Drood is a highly atmospheric tale of murder. Central to the plot is John Jasper: in public he is a man of integrity and benevolence; in private he is an opium addict. And while seeming to smile on the engagement of his nephew, Edwin Drood, he is, in fact, consumed by jealousy, driven to terrify the boy's fiancée and to plot the murder of Edwin himself. As in many of Dickens's greatest novels, the gulf between appearance and reality drives the action. Set in the seemingly innocuous cathedral town of Cloisterham, the story rapidly darkens with a sense of impending evil. Though The Mystery of Edwin Drood is one of its author's darkest books, it also bustles with a vast roster of memorable-and delightfully named-minor characters: Mrs. Billikins, the landlady; the foolish Mr. Sapsea; the domineering philanthropist, Mr. Honeythunder; and the mysterious Datchery. Several attempts have been made over the years to complete the novel and solve the mystery, but even in its unfinished state it is a masterpiece.

Charles Dickens

(Author)

View Author's Page

Charles Dickens (February 7, 1812 - June 9, 1870) was born in Portsmouth and was the eldest son of a Royal Navy clerk. At twelve, his father's imprisonment for debt forced him to work in a blacking factory. His education was sporadic: he taught himself shorthand, worked as a clerk in a law office, and eventually became a parliamentary correspondent for the Morning Chronicle.

Coming from a humble family, "good old Charles" did not receive formal education until he was nine, and was heavily criticized by the critics of the time for being too self-taught. His life took an unexpected turn with his father's imprisonment for debts, moving his family to live with him in jail, allowed at that time by British laws. At the age of 12, he was already considered fit to start working in a dye factory. Although his family's situation had improved, his mother insisted he keep working there, inspiring him to write one of his masterpieces, David Copperfield.

His articles, later collected in Scenes from London Life by "Boz" (1836-1837), were very successful, and with the appearance in 1837 of The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club, Dickens became a true publishing phenomenon. Novels such as Oliver Twist (1837-1839), Nicholas Nickleby (1838-1839), and Barnaby Rudge (1841) gained enormous popularity, as did some travel chronicles, such as Pictures from Italy (1846). With Dombey and Son (1846-1848) he began his mature period, of which good examples are David Copperfield (1849-1850), his first novel in the first person and his favorite, in which he developed some autobiographical episodes; Bleak House (1852-1853); Little Dorrit (1855-1857), A Tale of Two Cities (1859), Great Expectations (1860-1861), and Our Mutual Friend (1864-1865). He died at Gad's Hill, his country house in Higham, in the county of Kent.

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