Published: The New York Times, July 15, 1905

J. Cuming Walters is the author of Clues to Dickens’s “Mystery of Edwin Drood” just published in London. Six numbers of this novel appeared between April and September 1870.

Dickens died in June of that year. The sales of this novel, as far as the monthly numbers went, far outstripped those of any of its predecessors. Naturally the curiosity of readers of Dickens about the story has been frequently manifested. So- called “sequels” to Dickens’s work have been eagerly bought. Yet many good judges have assumed, from the quality ot those chapters the master novelist had finished before his death, that “The Mystery of Edwin Drood” would never have equaled in merit the best of his earlier works. George Gissing, a close and sympathetic student of Dickens, believed that the mystery would have turned out to be “paltry.” A recent writer in The London Chronicle takes the opposite view. He says:

The story, of course, is not in Dickens’s most characteristic vein. During the last years of his life his association and occasional collaboration with Wilkie Collins, in the service of “All the Year Round” drew Dickens aside from his familiar method of leisurely narrative, and concentrated him upon the novel of mystery and incident. No doubt his public readings tended in the same direction; his whole cast of mind and habit became more dramatic, more vividly theatrical in grasp.

The influence may be seen at work in “Great Expectations”; it permeated the riverside scenes of “Our Mutual Friend”; it is the very essence of “Edwin Drood.” Certain conservative Dickensians, especially those who are blind admirers of “Pickwick,” are disposed to deprecate this change in their favorite’s methods, but they are almost certainly wrong. The misfortune was that Dickens died before he had had time to complete the union of the two styles. In “Great Expectations” there are several loose threads which he had not been at the pains to take up; “Our Mutual. Friend” holds the two methods in solution; it almost looks as though “Edwin Drood” would have been the first story in which Dickens’s peculiar gift for eccentric life and character was to unite with a fine constructive power of which he had hitherto given little direct evidence.

The fragment is full of typical Dickens figures; it is also radically unlike the rest of his work in the intense interest of the plot, taken merely for its own sake. Had that plot been worked out on a scale commensurate with its unfolding, we incline to believe that “Edwin Drood” would have been one of the most popular of all its author’s works. Everything of course depends upon the development to which it would have been subjected.

The same writer says of the new book of “Clues,” mentioned above:

There have been various attempts to cork out the story, some ingenious, some impertinent. We are familiar with most of them, and have no hesitation in saying that Mr. Cuming Walters’s interpretation, contained in the modest volume before us, is by far the most closely reasoned, the most reasonable, and the most satisfying that has yet been given to the public. Its publication must indeed be regarded as a landmark in the history of Dickens literature. Most of the interpretations of the mystery have carried with them their own criticism of the story which they seek to complete; they have been so obvious that they leave “Edwin Drood” with the prospect of having grown into a very ordinary melodrama.

Now Dickens was no mean critic of his own novels; and he believed thoroughly in “Edwin Drood.” “I have a very curious and new idea,” he said; “not a communicable one; though difficult to work.” He very seldom expressed himself with so much confidence in his own work without that confidence being justified in the performance. Mr. Cunning Walters’s solution of the “Mystery” is the first we have ever seen to suggest the justice of Dickens’s own enthusiasm. It presents the scheme of an engrossing story, and presents it as the result of most intimate and searching analysis.

We shalt not divulge Mr. Walters’s theory, partly because to do so requires more space than we have at our disposal, but more particularly because a brief account of it would do injustice to the ingenuity and intricacy with which it is propounded. It is sufficient to say that the three questions — (1) Was Drood dead? (2) Who was Datchery? (3) Who was the Opium woman? are searchingly investigated, with the result in the case of Datchery, of a most surprising and novel theory, which, after teasting it from every point of view, we are inclined to pronounce impregnable.

A good deal of Mr. Walters’s persuasiveness may be due to the keen and critical arrangement of his arguments; but at present we are certainly convinced that he has at last succeeded in clearing up one of the most fascinating enigmas in modern literature. Upon the skill and tact with which he has fulfilled his task we desire heartily to congratulate him. His theories will very possibly provoke controversy, and there are details in which they may, perhaps, yield to criticism. But it is safe to say that henceforth, whenever “The Mystery of Edwin Drood” is discussed, the first solution to be considered, and (we believe) the last to be relinquished, will be that which Mr. Cuming Walters has so elaborately set forth in this unpretentious but highly suggestive little volume.