The Last Dickens

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 fortunate 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.

This novel is dedicated to each of my English teachers.

About the author

MATTHEW PEARL is the New York Times best-selling author of The Poe Shadow and The Dante Club, and the editor of the Modern Library editions of Dante's Inferno (translated by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow) and Edgar Allan Poe's The Murders in the Rue Morgue: The Dupin Tales. Pearl is a graduate of Harvard University and Yale Law School and has taught literature at Harvard and at Emerson College. He lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

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