What period is covered by the story of the Mystery of Edwin Drood? The investigations of Percy Carden and others have fixed the period as 1842, but there are difficulties in the way of accepting this date as correct, and these difficulties merit examination. Dickens says in Chapter III that "sufficient reasons which the narrative will unfold" oblige him to disguise the name of the central scene of the story, and it would appear that equally "sufficient reasons" make the period equally difficult to determine.

Consider the illustrations. Charles Collins, who designed the monthly wrapper before a word of the book was written "made his designs from her [Kate Dickens's] father's directions." It may therefore be assumed that Dickens approved of the wrapper as we see it, and approved of the way in which the figures in the design are dressed. Looking closely at these costumes we see that they are all, male and female, of the period 1869-1870 when the book was written. In the top section Rosa is wearing the polonaise of the sixties and Edwin is garbed in the morning coat and light trousers of the same period. On the opposite side Jasper's side-whiskers — "mutton-chops" — are of the same date. All the other male figures wear the ordinary every- day costume of the sixties and seventies; note especially the light overcoat or surtout of the figure facing the lantern in the lowest centre panel. Observe also, on the left, the lady whose hand is being kissed; she wears the hat and fight veil of the late sixties.

Now look at Luke Fildes's pictures, also drawn under Dickens's personal directions and doubtless drawn with the utmost care, as they are the work of a young and ambitious artist of twenty-six who would be only too anxious to earn the approval of the most popular novelist of his day. The top-hats of all the men are "dated" as of 1868-69 and so are the frock-coats; Edwin's jacket in "Under the trees" might be the identical velveteen jacket that Fildes wore in his studio — the style was just becoming fashionable for artists. The pianoforte and the stool in "At the piano" are of 1865-70. The young ladies' costumes and the maid's dress in "Goodbye, Rosebud, Darling," might have been drawn from a fashion-plate of 1869, and quite possibly they were. The neckwear of the three men in "On dangerous ground" are of the same period and so are Edwin's light trousers with the dark stripe down the leg, and so is the dust and soot collecting fringed mantel-board of the fireplace, and also the hideous coal-scuttle. In fine, judging by the cover and the illustrations which, in the circumstances of their inception and execution, must be regarded as integral parts of the story, Dickens was writing what we should call nowadays a "modern novel," that is to say a novel of his own day —1870.

The modernity of the book is shewn also in the incident of Rosa's hat. In Chapter XXI Rosa, at Furnival's Inn, "asked if she should put her hat on," and then "withdrew for the purpose." Now hats did not become ordinary wear for women until about 1860 or a little later; up to that time every woman, from Queen Victoria downwards, wore a bonnet (often with a veil); when hats became fashionable, elderly ladies like Miss Twinkleton clung to their bonnets, and we know that that lady brought her bonnet-box to London.

But another aspect of the question of the date is seen when we discuss Mr. Sapsea's age. He was "much nearer sixty years of age than fifty." Let fifty-eight be assumed. "In his infancy" he had known a patriotic toast: "When the French come over May we meet them at Dover." He did not drink the toast, for it was "in his infancy " — say, when he was about eight years old — but a child of that age would remember his elders raising their glasses in 1804, the year Napoleon's army was encamped at Boulogne seeking an opportunity to invade England. If Sapsea were eight years old in 1804 he would be fifty-eight in 1854, and on this reasoning the time of the action of the book is the 'fifties, which does not agree with the period of the pictures.

Is it possible to draw any definite conclusion from the third sentence in the book? "The well-known massive grey square tower of its old cathedral." The view in the vignette on the title-page (which it is quite possible Dickens never saw) shows this to be Rochester. The history of Rochester and old prints of the city indicate that originally the fourteenth century tower was surmounted by a rather squat spire. That spire was removed during "restorations" in 1823 and the square tower embellished by corner pinnacles as shewn in Fildes's drawing; and this was' the tower with which Dickens was familiar all his life; for during his early boyhood at Chatham he probably would not pay any particular attention to the tower of Rochester cathedral, and he was only eleven years of age when he was brought to London in the same year that the spire disappeared. The pinnacles were not taken away and a spire reinstated till 1904, long after Dickens's death. On these considerations the date of the story would be after 1823.

Another line of enquiry suggests itself with regard to Christmas Day. In the book this festival fell upon a Sunday (Chapter XII), and this might happen in 1836, in 1842, in 1853, in 1859 or in 1864. Carden votes confidently for 1842, backing his opinion with the scanty railway facilities referred to later. This date would, however, clash with all the other considerations examined so far.

Another pointer may help a little with our enquiries: this time from the illustrations only, and not from the text, which in Chapter XXII sends Lieutenant Tartar's boating party "up the river" from Temple Stairs. Fildes's picture shews that they got as far as Putney, and Dickens must have approved. The ugly timber bridge shewn in the background, with its double toll-house astride the roadway, was built in 1845, so by this evidence the period of the story is later than 1845, and takes us a little nearer the date suggested by Sapsea's age.

That boating trip started from Temple Stairs, and so we get further help, for the Stairs were replaced, when the Victoria Embankment was constructed in 1864-1870, by the present handsome double flight of stone steps. We see therefore that from these two paragraphs that the date of the story is between 1845 and 1864. This period would suit Sapsea's age, and also give a year when Christmas Day fell upon a Sunday as 1853 or 1859 are available, but not 1864, as probably the Temple Stairs were not in use during the building works on the Embankment: if they were the narrative would have said so, as Mr Grewgious's hat and Rosa's hat would be in fashion about 1864.

Another reference appears to point to the same period. In Chapter XVII Canon Crisparkle remembers his college days when he had known "professors of the Noble Art of Fisticuffs" (i.e. prize-fighting). At the Haven of Philanthropy the Canon recognised "the counterpart of a deceased benefactor of his species, an eminent public character once known as Frosty-faced Fogo." The palmy days of prize-fighting were from about 1750 to 1850, the last great fight taking place between Sayers and Heenan in 1860. (Dickens took an interest in this fight and procured tickets for it for a friend.) Fogo, whoever he was, was dead, but he must have been someone whom Dickens remembered. Canon Crisparkle's age was 35, and if the story was a modern one (1869-70) his university days were about 1853 to 1856, and this would agree with some of the foregoing results.

Let us try again. In Chapter XVII there is a reference to an "unfinished and undeveloped railway station." The name is not given for the "sufficient reasons" that keep the name of Rochester out of the book, but if Rochester is disguised as Cloisterham the station must be London Bridge, for Rosa "came into London over the house- tops," and none of the other London stations approached "over the housetops" — Waterloo, Charing Cross, Cannon Street, Fenchurch Street and Broad Street — would fit the conditions of the story, including the fact that Neville, after seeing Canon Crisparkle off, walked the streets and "crossed the bridges." London Bridge Station has had, since its beginning, so many additions and adjustments that it necessarily remained "unfinished and undeveloped" for years. Opened in 1836 as the terminus for the Greenwich line, it served the same purpose in 1841 for the Brighton line; in 1842-43 for the line to Folkestone; for the North Kent line to Strood in 1849; and each of these additions and adjustments so held up its completion that Dickens's story might have its action any time after 1836 until the time when he was writing.

The Carden theory that the date was 1842 appears to receive support from a paragraph in Chapter VI, so it may be worth while to comment on the passage rather closely. "In those days there was no railway to Cloisterham, and Mr. Sapsea said there never would be. Mr. Sapsea said more: he said there never should be. And yet, wonderful to consider, it has come to pass, in these days [i.e. 1869-70] that express trains don't think Cloisterham worth stopping at." (In fact, there was no station at Rochester till 1892.) Here, then, is evidence that the date of the story may be any time before 1858, which, while justifying the statement about Sapsea's age, would also include a Christmas Day on a Sunday in 1853, and might even be applicable to 1842, though that would rule Sapsea out.

Neither Strood (North Kent Line) nor Rochester Bridge (L.C.D Railway), also called Strood at some periods of its existence, can have been intended as the station used by Jasper and Rosa as that station is little more than half a mile from the Nuns' House, and a coach or an omnibus would not be necessary; moreover its connexion with Rochester is not "from an unprecedented (? outlandish) part of the country by a back stable (no thoroughfare) way" but by the main coach-road from London to Dover which passes within 300 yards of it. Another sentence from the same chapter reads: "Some remote fragment of Main Line to somewhere else there was," and this seems to refer to the South Eastern Railway Line from London Bridge via Redhill to Folkestone, opened for traffic as far as Headcorn in August, 1842. Where that line crosses the road connecting Tunbridge Wells and Maidstone there was a station called Maidstone Road: this is 21 miles from Rochester by road ("remote" and "in the days when Cloisterham took offence at the existence of a railroad afar off"). Maidstone Road and Rochester were linked by an omnibus ("a short squat omnibus"), say, about two and a half hours' ride allowing for a change of horses half-way at Maidstone, and this might be the length of Joe's endurance of being squashed by the weight and size of Mr Honeythunder. In 1844 a line had been constructed from Maidstone to Maidstone Road, renamed Paddock Wood, leaving only eleven miles of road travel from Maidstone to Rochester. This shorter journey by omnibus would give Joe a less ordeal of being "compressed into a most uncomfortably small compass," and while less distressing than the 21 miles from Maidstone Road, it would allow the date of the story to be later than 1842, but not before 1844. It must, however, be remembered that this shorter journey cannot be reconciled with the time occupied by Rosa's trip to London in Chapter XX. Let us see how her time would be filled in. She saw Jasper in the garden of the Nuns' House after the afternoon service—say at 5 o'clock: by 5.30 she was indoors fainting, writing a "hurried note to Miss Twinkleton" and packing a "few quite useless articles into a very little bag"; so that by 6 o'clock she was ready for the omnibus to take her to the railway station; that journey would take her from 6 o'clock to about 8.30; the train was waiting, for Joe put her straight in, and she started for London, arriving at London Bridge at about 9.45; then a cab would land her at Staple Inn at 10 o'clock just "as the clocks were striking." But unfortunately this will not do, for, on consulting the railway time-table for 1842, it is seen that the train was not timed to get to London Bridge till 10.15, which, as Euclid would say, is absurd.

Now, turn to Chapter XXIII, where Princess Puffer tracks Jasper — "I'll not miss ye twice." The porter at the hybrid hotel tells the Puffer that Jasper will return to Cloisterham "at six this evening." Puffer will "be there before ye and bide your coming," so the "poor soul stands in Cloisterham High Street … until nine o'clock, at which hour" the omnibus "that plied betwixt the station and the place" would arrive. Now, if the Puffer caught the 1.30 train from London Bridge, she would get to Maidstone Road at 3.46 and to Cloisterham at about 6.15, and would have to wander about the High Street for nearly three hours. Her next train from London, the 4.10, reached Maidstone Road at 6.16, and the omnibus would reach Cloisterham about 8.45, in which case, instead of "getting through the time as best she can until nine o'clock," she would only have a quarter of an hour to wait. Now examine Jasper's movements, again consulting the time-table. If he left the hybrid hotel "at six this evening" how could he catch the last train from London Bridge, which left at 5.30? And even if he did he would not reach Maidstone Road till 7.46 and Cloisterham till about 10.15. It is all very puzzling, and adds to the difficulties of fixing the period of the story.

[A minor point arises, although it need not affect our enquiry as to the period. Why did Dickens send his characters by such a roundabout way to and from London as to involve a journey of 67 miles (21 miles by omnibus and 46 by rail) including a change of vehicles at Maidstone Road? He might have sent them by road-coach direct from Rochester to London, which is only 29 miles, or 8 miles further than from Rochester to Maidstone Road. Such a coach journey would take about three and a half hours without a change, whereas the combined coach and railway journey took nearly five hours.]

The results of the enquiry can now be briefly summarised:

1. The cover and the pictures. — Point to a time about 1869.

2. Rosa's hat. — Any time after about 1860.

3. Sapsea's age. — About 1854.

4. Cathedral tower. — Any time after 1823.

5. Christmas Day. — A wide choice: 1836, 1842, 1853 or 1859

6. Putney Bridge. — After 1845.

7. Temple Stairs. — Before 1864.

8. Frosty-faced Fogo. — Between 1850 and 1860.

9. Railway station. — After 1836.

10. Railway transit. — Apparently between 1842 and 1844.

It seems quite impossible to find any common focus. As soon as one line of enquiry leads to one goal, another line leads otherwhere. One can only conclude that Dickens was not writing a topographical and historical account of Rochester-Cloisterham, nor was he troubling much how his various allusions and references could be reconciled one with another. He was writing what promised to be a masterpiece of fiction — a novel, a modern novel, with an interest perennial in its appeal. One can almost see his mind at work: "I will write a modern mystery tale: where shall it be? Rochester I know best, but I must not call it that; let us say Cloisterham — that has a cathedrally sound; I can then refer to the localities with safety, especially to the cathedral tower, and I need not mention the castle at all, as I shall not want it for my mystery: I must tell Collins the costumes may be modern: I must have an old "Jackass" as every drama has a jackass, so I'll invent Sapsea; someone is sure to say later that his name is an anagram of ape and ass; Christmas shall be the critical time — I'll make it fall on a Sunday, the year won't matter, as I don't suppose anyone will check it, so I need not worry about looking up a calendar: what about travel? I must get the people to London, as every reader will expect something about London in any book of mine; I must make it more difficult than it would be nowadays, and, anyway, there is no railway station at Rochester, and I don't suppose there will be for years: I shall want a boat-trip up the Thames, so I'll use Temple Stairs; I used them in Great Expectations, and they'll do again: as to period, well, I don't know, but any time about the middle of the century will do, I should think …"