The Last Dickens

by Matthew Pearl

  “I believe I interrupted your shop boy's enjoyment of Drood's tale,” Longfellow said.

  “Oh, yes. That's little Rich-he hadn't seen a schoolroom before two years ago, and now reads a book a week. Drood is his favorite so far.”

  “It is certainly one of Mr. Dickens's most beautiful works, if not the most beautiful of all. It is too sad to think the pen had fallen out of his hand to leave it incomplete,” Longfellow said.

  “Some months ago I had in my possession the final pages,” said Osgood, without exactly intending to. What would Osgood tell him about it? That Fred Chapman had taken the manuscript back to England? That an accident had occurred on board the ship and destroyed several pieces of baggage including the trunk carrying. Drood? “Cruel misfortune intervened,” Osgood commented vaguely.

  Longfellow paused before replying, pulling Osgood's arm closer as if to tell him a secret. “It is for the best.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I sometimes think, dear Mr. Osgood, that all proper books are unfinished. They simply have to feign completion for the convenience of the public. If not for publishers, no authors would ever reach the end. We would have all writers and no readers. So you mustn't shed a tear for Drood. No, there is much to envy about it- I mean that each reader will imagine his or her ideal ending for it, and every reader will be happy with their own private finale in their mind. It is in a truer state, perhaps, than any other work of its kind, however large we print those words, The End. And you have made the best of it!”

  Indeed, their edition of Drood had been a resounding success by any measure and beyond every expectation, sending the publishing firm scrambling to print enough editions to keep up with demand. It had seemed that stories had trickled out into the trade-apparently beginning with a Bookaneer who called himself Molasses-of Os-good's remarkable search for the book's ending. Pieces of the narrative of this quest, some entirely true and some wild rumor, were put together in a lengthy series of articles by Mr. Leypoldt in his newly titled magazine, the Publishers Weekly, as the first of his stories of the soul of publishing, which brought thousands of new eyes on Leypoldt's magazine and led to the narrative being retold by the major newspapers and journals in all the cities. This attracted enormous attention and interest in their edition of Drood, turning the name Osgood on the title page into a selling point-while the pirated editions by Harper hawked by the peddlers and bagmen gathered dust. The Fields & Osgood editions filled the front windows of bookstores, banishing the Indian prints and cigar boxes to the back.

  The added attention by the trade journals not only helped sell copies of Drood. It brought in fresh new authors who wanted to be published by a man like Osgood-Louisa May Alcott, Bret Harte, Anna Leonowens, among others. Osgood was currently discussing arrangements for a novel with Mr. Samuel Clemens.

  It was all a revelation in the trade. The firm was poised not only to survive but to flourish.

  Returning to 124 Tremont after parting from Longfellow, as he hung his hat on a peg, Osgood was greeted by the reliable clerk who had replaced Mr. Midges. “Mr. Fields wants to see you at once,” he said.

  Osgood thanked him and started to take his leave before the clerk called after him. “Oh, Mr. Osgood, the operator has stepped out. Do you require assistance with the car?”

  Osgood glanced at the firm's newly installed elevator on the east wing of the building. “Thank you,” he said. “I'd just as soon take the stairs.”

  On his way through the corridors, he looked for Rebecca, who had some weeks earlier been promoted by Fields from a bookkeeper to the position of reader. The usual reader had fallen ill for two weeks. Rebecca had impressed Fields examining the manuscripts submitted to the Atlantic.

  Since their return from England, Osgood and Rebecca's contact had been the model of professional distance and propriety, all doors of communication between them open for anyone to see. But they had both marked their desk registers. May 15, 1871, approximately six months from the present: that would be the date the clock would wind down for her divorce to be as official as the gold dome of the State House. The wait proved to be a source of immense excitement. The secret was thrilling and increased their love for each other. Each day that passed brought them twenty-four hours closer to the reward of an open courtship.

  When he entered the senior partner's office, Osgood sighed in spite of himself and their renewed successes.

  “More extraordinary sales numbers for the last Dickens today,” Fields said. “Yet your thoughts seem far away.”

  “Perhaps they are.”

  “Well, where, then?”

  “Lost at sea. Mr. Fields, I must speak my mind. I think it possible Frederic Chapman's baggage had no accident at all.”

  “Oh?”

  “I do not believe those pages were involved in an accident. I possess no evidence, only suspicion. Instinct, perhaps.”

  Fields nodded contemplatively. The senior partner had the general mark of exhaustion on him. “I see.”

  “You think me unjust to the gentleman,” Osgood said cautiously.

  “Fred Chapman? I know him no better than you to judge him a gentleman or swindler.”

  “Yet you don't seem the least bit surprised by my radical notion!” Osgood exclaimed.

  Fields looked over Osgood calmly. “There were reports of a flood aboard that steamship in the wires.”

  “I know. Yet you've suspected it, too,” Osgood said. “You've suspected something else from the beginning. Haven't you?”

  “My dear Osgood. Have a chair. Have you read Forster's book on Dickens's life?”

  “I have avoided it.”

  “Yes, he hardly wastes any breath on our American tour. But he does print the text of Dickens's contract with Chapman.”

  If the said Charles Dickens shall die during the composition of the said work of The Mystery of Edwin Drood, or shall otherwise become incapable of completing the said work for publication in twelve monthly numbers as agreed, or in the case of his death, incapacity, or refusal to act, it shall be referred to such person as shall be named by Her Majesty's Attorney-General to determine the amount which shall be repaid by the said Charles Dickens, his executors or administrators, to the said Frederic Chapman as a fair compensation for so much of the said work as shall not have been completed for publication.

  Osgood put the book down. “It is as the Major said, that books would be mere lumber. Chapman gets paid twice!” he exclaimed.

  “Correct,” Fields said. “He earns the money from the sale of the book and he gets paid from the Dickens estate in compensation for the book being unfinished. On the other hand, if he waved the final chapter around for the world to see, the executors-Forster, who likes Chapman not a bit, considering him another unworthy competitor for Dickens's attentions-would argue that even without the entire final six installments, the last chapter proves Dickens did finish and that the estate did not owe a farthing to Chapman. And that's not all. Think of it, won't you? A new Dickens novel is a new Dickens novel-as remarkable as that is. Yet an unfinished Dickens novel is a mystery in itself. You see the speculation, the sensation! The attention that gets for Mr. Chapman's publication is invaluable.”

  “Nor does he contend with pirates, as we do without copyright for Mr. Dickens over here,” Osgood said.

  “No, he doesn't,” Fields agreed.

  “Do you think the pages we gave him, that last chapter, still exist, then?”

  “Perhaps an accident did destroy them. We shall never know. Unless-well, you say he gets paid twice, very true. But he could get paid three times in the end. If a day should come, perhaps months, perhaps ten years from today, perhaps a century, when a firm of Mr. Chapman's or his heirs needs money, they could publish the ‘newly unriddled!’ ending to The Mystery of Edwin Drood and cause a roar among the reading public! The novel's villain would finally be convicted for good.”

  Osgood thought about this. “There must be more we can do.”

  “We have. We ha
ve made our own success out of this, thanks to you and Miss Sand.”

  Osgood realized only now that Fields had been clutching a pen in his pinched hand. “My dear Fields, why, you must not strain yourself writing. You know Mrs. Fields ordered me to watch that you take care of your hand. I can call your bookkeeper in again, or I'll do it.”

  “No, no. This one last thing I must write myself, thank you, if I write nothing else ever again! I am tired and will go home early today and sleep like your old tabby cat. Mind, I have a present for you first, that's why I called you in.”

  Fields held up a pair of boxing gloves. Osgood, laughing under his breath, wondered what to say.

  “You'd better take them, Osgood.”

  Fields pushed a piece of paper across his desk. On it, painfully scrawled in his own hand, was a preliminary design for stationery. It read:

  “This talented and charming young lady helped me with the design,” said Fields.

  Rebecca came to the doorway smiling in a white cashmere dress and with a flower in her hair, which was in black ringlets coiled high on her head. Osgood, forgetting to restrain himself, took one of her hands in each of his.

  “How do you feel, my dear Ripley?” she asked breathlessly.

  “Yes, don't be shy,” Fields said, “what do you think of it? Honest now. Are you surprised, my dear Osgood?”

  The shop boy knocked at the door struggling to hold up an awkwardly wrapped package almost as big as him.

  “Ah, Rich,” said Fields. “Ask Simmons to send a note to Leypoldt telling him we have news for him to report. What is that?” he asked of the parcel. “We're very much occupied at present with some celebratory tidings.”

  “Guess it's a parcel. See, it's addressed to…” the shop boy began, pausing uncertainly. “Wall, to ‘James R. Osgood and Company,’ sir.”

  “What?” Fields exclaimed. “Impossible! What kind of modern-day Tiresias could know about that already? What kind of man with more eyes than Argus?”

  Osgood slowly unwrapped the layers of paper, which were cold enough from the package's winter journey to be thin sheets of ice. Emerging from underneath it all, an iron bust of a distinguished Benjamin Franklin with his sidelong, wary, bespectacled gaze and pursed lips. “It's the statue from Harper's office,” Osgood said.

  “That's the Major's prize possession!” Fields said with surprise and bewilderment.

  “There's a note,” Osgood said, and then he read it aloud.

  Congratulations on your ascendancy, Mr. Osgood. Take good care of this relic, for the time. I shall claim it back when I come to swallow your firm. Always watching, your friend, Fletcher Harper, the Major. At the top of the note was the emblem of the eternal Harper torch.

  “Harper! How did he find out already? Get a hammer!” Fields declared. “Damn that Harper!”

  Osgood shook his head calmly and gave an even smile. “No, my dear Fields. Let it stand here. I have a good feeling that it shall remain ours from this time onward.”

  Historical Note

  O N JUNE 9, 1870, CHARLES DICKENS DIED OF A STROKE AT fifty-eight years old at his family estate in the English countryside. He was arguably the most widely read novelist of his day. After his death, some observers blamed his deteriorated health on the arduous nature of his farewell tour of the United States, while others pointed the finger at the strain he was under from his last book. Before collapsing, he had written the first six of twelve installments planned for The Mystery of Edwin Drood, literary history's most famous unfinished novel.

  The Last Dickens aims to portray Charles Dickens and the atmosphere surrounding his life and death as accurately as possible. Dickens's language, behavior, and personality as they appear in this novel incorporate many actual conversations and actions. The recreation of his landmark farewell tour of the United States (1867-68) is based on visits to sites like the Parker House, where Dickens lodged in Boston (now the Omni Parker House), and was enlarged by research into letters, playbills, newspaper accounts, and recollections by participants like George Dolby and James and Annie Fields. Thus, most of the tour's incidents depicted here are historical, including Dickens's rescue of the stranded animals and his visit with Oliver Wendell Holmes to the Harvard Medical College.

  The stalking incident portrayed in the same chapters is based on an actual series of encounters involving a well-to-do Boston admirer named Jane Bigelow, from whom Louisa Barton is drawn and fictionalized. A tax collector blackmailed the Dickens staff while plotting their arrests for evasion of the federal entertainment tax. Dickens's pocket diary for 1867 indeed disappeared in New York around the same time, turning up without explanation more than fifty years later at an auction (today it forms part of the New York Public Library's Berg Collection).

  Historical characters in this novel include James R. Osgood, the Fieldses, the Harpers, Frederic Chapman, John Forster, Georgina Hogarth, Frederick Leypoldt, Dickens's tour staff-Dolby, Henry Scott, Richard Kelly, George Allison-and Dickens's children-Frank, Katie, Mamie-all of whom are re-created here from investigation into their personal and professional lives. Fictional characters, including Tom Branagan, Rebecca and Daniel Sand, Arthur Grunwald, Jack Rogers, Ironhead Herman, and Marcus Wakefield, are developed from research into the era. Rebecca reflects the real achievements and challenges in a new class of single working women in mid- to late-nineteenth-century Boston as well as that of divorced women. The international opium trade and its manifestations in England and British India as portrayed here, as well as the book trade, reflect historical turning points.

  The firm of Fields, Osgood & Co. became the authorized American publisher of Charles Dickens in 1867, a move that ignited controversy with rival publisher Harper & Brothers. Dickens did offer to tell Queen Victoria the story of The Mystery of Edwin Drood ahead of the public, but she apparently declined. With Drood incomplete, theatrical dramatizations and “spiritual” sequels appeared and multiplied. Rumors began that Dickens had completed more of the novel than what had been made public. While Osgood's attempt in The Last Dickens to trace clues to the rest of Dickens's novel is a product of imagination, many of its key elements grew out of history and scholarship. Dickens closely modeled his novel's opium den and characters on an actual London establishment he visited that was managed by a woman named Sally, or “Opium Sal;” also, possible sources for his story of Edwin Drood's disappearance include a Rochester legend about human remains of a man's nephew found in the walls of his house. The landlord of the Falstaff Inn, located across from Gadshill estate, was William Stocker Trood, who had a son named Edward. Dickens's statue, Turk Seated Smoking Opium, was sold at auction along with his other belongings at Christie, Manson & Woods in London on July 8, 1870. The statue, along with the quill pen Dickens used to write Drood, can be viewed today at the Charles Dickens Museum in London; his walking stick with the screw in its handle is at Houghton Library, Harvard University.

  The Mystery of Edwin Drood was published in book form in late 1870 in London by Chapman & Hall and in Boston by Fields, Osgood & Co.; the Boston publication was followed by an unauthorized edition from Harper & Brothers in New York. As shown here, the end of 1870 saw Fields retire and Osgood becoming proprietor of James R. Osgood & Co. In 1926, Chapman & Hall indicated that it still kept their original agreement with Dickens for The Mystery of Edwin Drood locked in a safe, but would not share it. Less than a year later, Chapman & Hall claimed they no longer could locate the agreement. In the many years since Dickens's death, various pieces of new evidence have shed little light on his intentions for The Mystery of Edwin Drood. The questions about the novel and its ending are as strong today as ever.

  Acknowledgments

  I N WRITING A NOVEL SET IN A CUTTHROAT ERA OF THE PUBLISHING industry, I am blessed that behind this project there are such generous publishing professionals: my literary agent, Suzanne Gluck-endlessly dedicated and dexterous-my editor, Jennifer Hershey-insightful, creative, and challenging-and a zealous champion in Gina Centrello. I'm fort
unate to have benefited from the further input and guidance of Stuart Williams at Harvill Secker. Support and imagination came from so many individuals: At Random House, Avideh Bashirrad, Lea Beresford, Sanyu Dillon, Benjamin Dreyer, Richard Elman, Laura Ford, Jennifer Huwer, Vincent La Scala, Sally Marvin, Libby McGuire, Annette Melvin, Courtney Moran, Gene Mydlowski, Jack Perry, Tom Perry, Carol Schneider, Judy Sternlight, Beck Stvan, and Jane von Mehren, as well as Amy Metsch at Random House Audio; at Harvill Secker, Matt Broughton, Liz Foley, Lily Richards; at William Morris Agency, Sarah Ceglarski, Georgia Cool, Raffaella De Angelis, Michelle Feehan, Tracy Fisher, Eugenie Furniss, Evan Goldfried, Alicia Gordon, Erin Malone, Elizabeth Reed, Frances Roe, Cathryn Summerhayes, Liz Tingue.

  I've relied on my superb reader's circle for judgment and ideas, once again composed of Benjamin Cavell, Joseph Gangemi, Cynthia Posillico, and Ian Pearl-who have proven they are impervious to being bothered by borrowers of their genius-and joined this time around by additional brilliant talents Louis Bayard and Eric Dean Bennett. Gabriella Gage provided invaluable assistance in a cross section of complex research, fortifying the project with her persistence, resourcefulness, and patience. Susan and Warren Pearl, Marsha Wiggins, Scott Weinger, and Gustavo Turner were present throughout to encourage both work and rest. And my gratitude to Tobey Pearl, who from the first to the last word helped me through all the hills and valleys of the process.

  I bow to more than a century of scholarship on Charles Dickens and The Mystery of Edwin Drood, especially all that has appeared in the Dickensian and Dickens Studies Annual journals, and the writings of Arthur Adrian, Sydney Moss, Fred Kaplan, Don Richard Cox, Robert Patten, and Duane Devries, with the latter three scholars kindly fielding additional questions through private correspondence. I've had the privilege to benefit from the resources of Harvard University Library, the Boston Public Library, the Bostonian Society, the Philadelphia Free Library, and the Dickens Museum in London.