The Mystery of Edwin Drood, Charles Dickens's final and unfinished novel, is set in the cathedral town of Cloisterham. Edwin Drood is betrothed to Rosa Bud through their late fathers' arrangement, though both harbor doubts about the match. John Jasper, Edwin's uncle and a choirmaster concealing a dark opium addiction, secretly lusts after Rosa. When Edwin mysteriously vanishes following a stormy Christmas Eve, suspicion increasingly points toward Jasper. The novel breaks off abruptly after only six of its planned twelve installments, leaving Edwin's fate forever unresolved. Its tantalizing incompleteness has spawned countless speculative endings, making it literature's most famous unsolved mystery.
