The Charles Collins Letter: Some Additional Mysteries

• Published in: Dickensian 2022-12, Vol.118 (518), p.309-256
• Main Author: Cox, Don Richard
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Dickens, Charles (1812-1870); Families & family life; Mysteries; Unfinished works
• ISSN: 0012-2440

The girl Rosa not having been really attached to Edwin, was not to lament his loss very long, and was, I believe, to admit the sailor Mr Tartar to supply his place. Forster stated flatly, with all the authority of his position as Dickens's closest friend and biographer, that the story 'was to be that of the murder of a nephew by his uncle', that 'Rosa was to marry Tartar, and Crisparkle the sister of Landless, who was himself, I think, to have perished in assisting Tartar finally to unmask and seize the murder'.4 Forster also added the detail that Collins had hinted at in his description of Jasper climbing the stairs and pointing at himself, that Jasper was 'to review the murderer's career by himself at the close, when its temptations were to be dwelt upon as if, not he the culprit, but some other man, were the tempted'.5 Forster included his explanation of the importance of the ring, which Collins did not mention in his version. The inner circle - Georgina, Mamie, John Forster, Charley Dickens, Kate and her husband Charles Collins, a group of people who were interacting with each other - this group would not need to sit down and hold a formal discussion or analysis of the novel. A comment over lunch, an offhand remark by Charles Collins (who, if he would commit his views on paper to a complete stranger, would surely not shrink from mentioning them in passing to a friend or family member) - this is all it would take for Collins's theories to become common knowledge within the family, and possibly make their way back to Forster, who could then echo them in his biography.