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Andrew Lang, in “The Puzzle of Dickens’s Last Plot”, examines some of the earlier attempts to solve the mystery as well as adding his own. I don’t find any of the “solutions” very convincing. Despite this, Lang makes a significant and clever use of the images and the cover illustrations as well as the various hints thrown out by Dickens. His conclusions are:
Neville dies in the process of arresting Jasper
“Jasper comes to the grief he deserves”
Helena marries Crisparkle
“Rosa weds her mariner”.
Edwin has been alive and “at twenty-one, is not heart-broken, but, a greatly improved character” and becomes an engineer in Egypt.
The Delphi ebook edition of Dickens does give four early attempts to finish the novel but I am going to read the completion by David Madden done in 2012. It is quite inexpensive in The UK Kindle store and gets some good reviews. The introduction by Madden is particularly interesting.
As to the novel as it stands, I feel that it shows Dickens at his best. Had it been completed I suspect that it would have been one of his finest works.
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