# Is "The Mystery of Edwin Drood" by Charles Dickens a First Edition?

> **Quick answer.** A first edition of The Mystery of Edwin Drood by Charles Dickens (Chapman and Hall, London, 1870) is identified by: True first is the serial issue in publisher's blue-green pictorial wrappers, six monthly parts (all published), April - September 1870; the wrapper design is by Charles Allston Collins, Dickens's son-in-law, who withdrew through ill health after designing the cover and was replaced as illustrator by Samuel Luke Fildes. The census gets the story right but the precedence wrong: it lists the true first as the 1870 Chapman & Hall book.

**Checklist — a true first has these:**
- True first is the serial issue in publisher's blue-green pictorial wrappers, six monthly parts (all published), April - September 1870; the wrapper design is by Charles Allston Collins, Dickens's son-in-law, who withdrew through ill health after designing the cover and was replaced as illustrator by Samuel Luke Fildes
- Complete sets have an engraved portrait of Dickens, an additional pictorial (vignette) title and 12 wood-engraved plates after Fildes - 14 plates in all as dealers usually count them
- The cardinal point is on the last part: the earliest state of the front wrapper of Part VI carries a printed 'Eighteenpence' slip pasted over the original 'Price One Shilling', Part VI being enlarged
- Hatton & Cleaver reportedly saw this in only about 10% of copies examined
- Each part has the Edwin Drood Advertiser at the front plus advertisements and slips at the rear; the cork-hats slip at the end of Part II and the Chapman & Hall advertisement in Part V are the scarce inserts
- Referenced as Gimbel A154, Hatton & Cleaver pp
- Publisher imprint reads Chapman and Hall, London

| | |
|---|---|
| Author | Charles Dickens |
| Publisher | Chapman and Hall, London |
| Year | 1870 |
| True first | — |
| Format | Hardcover (trade) |
| Key point | True first is the serial issue in publisher's blue-green pictorial wrappers, six monthly parts (all published), April - September 1870; the… |
| Book-club edition exists? | No |

## Points of issue
True first is the serial issue in publisher's blue-green pictorial wrappers, six monthly parts (all published), April - September 1870; the wrapper design is by Charles Allston Collins, Dickens's son-in-law, who withdrew through ill health after designing the cover and was replaced as illustrator by Samuel Luke Fildes. Complete sets have an engraved portrait of Dickens, an additional pictorial (vignette) title and 12 wood-engraved plates after Fildes - 14 plates in all as dealers usually count them. The cardinal point is on the last part: the earliest state of the front wrapper of Part VI carries a printed 'Eighteenpence' slip pasted over the original 'Price One Shilling', Part VI being enlarged; Hatton & Cleaver reportedly saw this in only about 10% of copies examined. Each part has the Edwin Drood Advertiser at the front plus advertisements and slips at the rear; the cork-hats slip at the end of Part II and the Chapman & Hall advertisement in Part V are the scarce inserts. Referenced as Gimbel A154, Hatton & Cleaver pp. 373-384, Eckel pp. 96-98. Dealers describe the wrappers variously as blue-green, green or blue. No dust jacket was issued at this date.

## Is this the true first?
The census gets the story right but the precedence wrong: it lists the true first as the 1870 Chapman & Hall book. It is not. The true first is the six parts in original wrappers, April - September 1870, published before and during Dickens's death on 9 June 1870; the one-volume Chapman and Hall book edition of 1870 collects the fragment afterward and is the first edition in book form, a separate and later thing. Both are collected, the parts decisively the more desirable. Dickens completed roughly the end of Part VI of twelve projected parts, so the novel breaks off unfinished - the wrappered parts are all that was published.

## Telling it from reprints & book-club editions
No book-club issue at this date. Traps: Part VI wrappers WITHOUT the 'Eighteenpence' slip (the later state, and the great majority of copies); respined or restored wrappers; sets lacking the cork-hats slip in Part II and the Chapman & Hall advertisement in Part V. The 1870 one-volume book edition is frequently offered simply as 'first edition' - true of the book form only, not of the work. Beware also the continuations and completions by other hands, e.g. Henry Morford's John Jasper's Secret (1871-72), which are separate works, not issues of Drood.

## Source
New Mexico Literacy Project — Is *The Mystery of Edwin Drood* by Charles Dickens a first edition? https://newmexicoliteracyproject.org/first-edition/the-mystery-of-edwin-drood
CC BY 4.0. Part of the Canonical First-Edition Points of Issue dataset (https://newmexicoliteracyproject.org/api/first-edition-titles.json). Last reviewed 2026-07-04.