Drood

Dust jacket by John Picacio

On June 9th, 1865, Charles Dickens, “the most popular novelist in England, perhaps the world,” boards a train bound from Folkstone to London, accompanied by his youthful mistress, the actress Ellen Ternan. Shortly afterward, the train derails near the village of Staplehurst, toppling into an abyss. Dickens emerges from the carnage physically, if not mentally, unscathed. And he has a story to tell.

He tells it, with typical Dickensian brio, to his friend and occasional collaborator, Wilkie Collins, the narrator of this magisterial novel. The story concerns an otherworldly figure who calls himself “Drood,” and who moves through the wreckage like a pale, unholy apparition. The mysteries surrounding Drood form the heart of an epic narrative encompassing ancient religious practices, subterranean cities, hallucinatory visions, madness, murder, and the limitless power of the creative imagination. The result is a fever dream of a book that vividly recreates the sights, sounds, and smells of 19th century London, while illuminating the final years of a great writer’s life. Absorbing, moving, and constantly surprising, Drood shows us Dan Simmons at his inimitable -- and mesmerizing -- best.

Limited: 500 numbered copies, fully bound in cloth, signed by author
Lettered: 26 copies, handbound, signed by author, housed in a custom traycase

Please note: This title is not eligible for any coupons, specials, or savings certificates.

From Library Journal (Starred Review):
“This sprawling monster of a novel is Collins-like in its exotic extravagance, Dickensian in its sharply delineated characters, major and minor. Simmons has captured to a tee the high style of late Victorian melodrama: the story line is consistenty engrossing and utterly unpredictable. This rip-roaring adventure is a true page-turner.”

From Publishers Weekly (Starred Review):
“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.”

From Booklist (Starred Review):
“Simmons also offers a stunning re-creation of Dickens’ London and its characters that’s almost as good as, well...Dickens. A top-notch, genre-bending tour de force, this is where history and horror meet.”