“We were eight in number; we met at eight o'clock during eight months of the year; we played eight games of four-handed cribbage, at eightpence the game; our frugal supper was composed of eight rolls, eight mutton chops, eight pork sausages, eight baked potatoes, eight marrow-bones, with eight toasts, and eight bottles of ale.”
— Mr. Sapsea
How Mr. Sapsea Ceased to Be a Member of the Eight Club (1870, Originally unpublished)
This section traditionally wraps up a book; however, after Residual Trace, I found that projects just keep growing and calving, where such a periodic realization elicits fleeting notions about the sorts of unfinished work that I will eventually leave behind… and frankly there’s a computer and online storage chock full of such things, albeit I am trying to flesh out such materials now that I am ramping into vocational retirement (early 2026).
In Lingering Suspicion, the epigraph came from a fragment that constitutes the entirety of a third book in Roald Dahl’s Charlie series, where I now similarly present material that would have been published in Dickens’ serial The Mystery of Edwin Drood, had he not died (1870). His biographer and good friend, John Forster, found the draft and included it towards the end of The Life of Charles Dickens (v. iii, pp. 425-426), of which, yes, I do have a first edition, as per my obsession with collecting original sources. Out of that chapter-in-the-rough, I was taken by this quote simply because 8 has always been my favorite number. (And yep, I used a Didone font there as well to capture the flavor of the original publication.)
For what it's worth, even in what is known as “The Sapsea Fragment,” Dickens displays his talent for drawing detailed character studies with a few select words, which reminds me…
I can highly recommend Character Portraits from Dickens by Charles Welsh (Chatto & Windus, London, 1908), where my copy was a gift from my son, Camrin.
And with that, I will turn you over to the epilogue…
A first edition set exists in which Foster has written a short dedication to his wife (in each of the three volumes), and while that would be an exquisite addition to any library, I simply couldn’t justify the cost (at well over $1,000 USD)… and knowing me, I would no doubt have donated it to some university library or other anyway.
Dickens, Charles (1870) The Mystery of Edwin Drood. Chapman & Hall, London, serialized in six monthly installments, April–September, with illustrations by S. Luke Fildes
“So much was told to me before any of the book was written; and it will be recollected that the ring, taken by Drood to be given to his betrothed only if their engagement went on, was brought away with him from their last interview.”
(v. iii, p. 425)
[Epilogue]