Drood: A Novel

Overview

On June 9, 1865, while traveling by train to London with his secret lover, Charles Dickens, in 53 years-at the height of his powers and popularity, is the most famous and successful novelist in the world and perhaps in history - enters into a disaster that changed his life forever. Dickens had begun living a dark double life after the accident? It was their night raids in the worst slums of London and his deepening obsession with corpses, crypts, murder, opium dens, the use of lime pits to dissolve bodies, and a basement hidden beneath London to research ... or something more terrifying?

Editorial Reviews

Bestseller Simmons (The Terror) brilliantly imagines a terrifying sequence of events as the inspiration for Dickens's last, uncompleted novel, The Mystery of Edwin Drood, in this unsettling and complex thriller. In the course of narrowly escaping death in an 1865 train wreck and trying to rescue fellow passengers, Dickens encounters a ghoulish figure named Drood, who had apparently been traveling in a coffin. Along with his real-life novelist friend Wilkie Collins, who narrates the tale, Dickens pursues the elusive Drood, an effort that leads the pair to a nightmarish world beneath London's streets. Collins begins to wonder whether the object of their quest, if indeed the man exists, is merely a cover for his colleague's own murderous inclinations. Despite the book's length, readers will race through the pages, drawn by the intricate plot and the proliferation of intriguing psychological puzzles, which will remind many of the work of Charles Palliser and Michael Cox. 4-city author tour. (Feb.)
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Author Information

Bio of Dan Simmons

Science fiction writer Dan Simmons was born in East Peoria, Illinois in 1948. He graduated from Wabash College in 1970 and received an M. A. from Washington University the following year. Simmons was an elementary school teacher and worked in the education field for a decade, including working to develop a gifted education program. His first successful short story was won a contest and was published in 1982. His first novel, Song of Kali, won a World Fantasy Award, and Simmons has also won a Theodore Sturgeon Award for short fiction, four Bram Stoker Awards, and eight Locus Awards. He is also the author of the Hyperion series, and Simmons and his work have been compared to Herbert's Dune and Asimov's Foundation series.

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Additional Info

Imprint

Little Brown & Company

Filesize

3.44 MB

Number of Pages

784

eBook ISBN

9780316040686