The Mystery of Edwin Drood is even more of a mystery than Dickens himself intended, for he died before completing it.
The main issue in the novel is the disappearance of Edwin Drood and the suspicion that he has been murdered. But as intriguing as this central plot are the startling innovations in Dicken's work and the troubled elements lurking within the novel: a dark opium under-world, the uneasy and violent fantasies of its inhabitants, the disquieting presence of old "Princess Puffer", his portrait of the quiet cathedral town Cloisterham from which people have to escape in order to save themselves—and, at the centre, the mencaing figure of Hasper.
In his introduction Angus Wilson discusses what is known about Dickens's intentions and suggest that, as well as a crime novel, Edwin Drood is a work in which Dickens develops his lifelong preoccupation with the forces of good and evil.