re common in his works, and the novel which immediately preceded Edwin Drood--Our Mutual Friend--shows this clearly, with three main plots and a subplot for nearly every character. Edwin Drood is different and is described by Booth as "tight, compact, highly unified. Every character, every action, is meaningful; there is not an irrelevant sentence" (p. viii).
Booth feels that one of the reasons for this was the growing friendship between Dickens and Wilkie Collins. Collins had recently published The Moonstone, and Dickens admitted the craftsmanship of the other man. Booth sees Dickens as by far the better and more imaginative writer, but he also feels that dickens wanted to try to best Collins at his own game by writing a mysterious novel similar in tone to The Moonstone: "the fragment that he left indicates that he was doing so by a very wide margin" (p. viii). Booth also notes that it is evidence of Dickens's skill that although he was well into the last third of the novel when he died, his mastery of suspense is apparent in that not one of the crucial questions raised in the early chapters has yet been answered. Even the fundamental question of whether or not Edwin Drood was murdered is uncertain.
Kaplan also notes the structure of Dickens's final days and finds that the author was extremely busy during this time, not only writing but giving a series of lectures in spite of feeling ill several times during his last year. Kaplan also notes that Dickens was not in good spirits. He also finds, though, that Dickens was beginning to have a more cheerful outlook as the date for the appearance of the first installment of Edwin Drood approached: "he pleasantly anticipated reestablishing his old role with his audience" (p. 548). During his final days, he also met for the first time with Queen Victoria. Other engagements also came during this time. Dickens thought he could balance his writing, his speaking, and other engage...