A LOVING STUDY OF DICKENS' HALF-TOLD TALE. BY RICHARD A. PROCTOR. 99.66 AUTHOR OF THE POETRY OF ASTRONOMY, OTHER WORLDS THAN OURS,' ""THE INFINITIES THE AMERICAN CYCLOPEDIA." "The rest is silence."-Shakespeare. LONDON: W. H. ALLEN & CO., 13 WATERLOO PLACE, PALL MALL. S.W. 1887. (All rights reserved.) HARVARD LONDON PRINTED BY W. H. ALLEN AND CO., 13 WATERLOO PLACE, PALL MALL. S.W. Entered according to Act of Congress in the Year 1887, In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington PREFACEЕ. THE " Mystery of Edwin Drood" is regarded by many as the least interesting of Dickens's works. The present work is based on the opinion expressed by Longfellow that the story, though unfinished, is "certainly one of Dickens's most beautiful works, if not the most beautiful of all." I do not know whether Longfellow ever gave his reasons for thinking thus of Edwin Drood; but I have little doubt that the poet admired what many critics contemned, because his true ear enabled him to interpret the tones in which Dickens unconsciously revealed the real interpretation of the Mystery. |