The Mystery of Edwin Drood

The Mystery of Edwin Drood is the final novel by Charles Dickens. The novel was left unfinished at the time of Dickens' death, and readers have often speculated how it might have ended. The novel is named after Edwin Drood, one of the characters, but it mostly tells the story of his uncle, a choirmaster named John Jasper, who is in love with his pupil, Rosa Bud. Miss Bud is Drood's fiancee, and has also caught the eye of the high-spirited and hot-tempered Neville Landless, who comes from Ceylon with his twin sister, Helena, who immediately makes an enemy of Drood. It is hinted strongly that Jasper is the murderer of Drood, who is missing at the end of the extant text, but it is not known whether Dickens had a surprise in mind.

The story is set in Cloisterham, a lightly fictionalised Rochester, and feelingly evokes the atmosphere of the town as much as its streets and buildings.

— Excerpted from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.