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The Mystery of Edwin Drood · Chapter
Appendix explained
The appendix reprints a fragment of a suggested chapter for The Mystery of Edwin Drood, found among Dickens's manuscripts by Forster.
What happens
The appendix reprints a fragment of a suggested chapter for The Mystery of Edwin Drood, found among Dickens's manuscripts by Forster. The fragment features Sapsea as the principal figure, surrounded by new characters, and is noted as being among the last things Dickens wrote.
Characters to notice
- Thomas Sapsea
Appears as the principal figure in the fragment.
Key passages
“When Forster was just finishing his biography of Dickens, he found among the leaves of one of the novelist’s other manuscripts certain loose slips in his writing, “on paper only half the size of that used for the tale, so cramped, interlined, and blotted as to be nearly illegible.””
While completing Dickens's biography, Forster discovered loose manuscript slips in Dickens's handwriting, on smaller paper, heavily edited and hard to read.
Describes the discovery of the fragment.