The child and imperial return: the mystery of Edwin Drood

Cocks, N. (2012) The child and imperial return: the mystery of Edwin Drood. Parallax, 18 (4). pp. 54-66. ISSN 1460-700X doi: 10.1080/13534645.2012.714554 (Special issue: Imperial affect)

Abstract/Summary

The Mystery of Edwin Drood has often been read as an Imperial text, just as Dickens's work has repeatedly been considered in relation to its construction of childhood. Despite this, 'the child' has either been avoided in criticism of Dickens's last novel, or has actively been read as absent. In this essay, I return the ‘repressed’ child to a reading of Drood, and through this disrupt appeals to a hard-impacted Imperial structure I understand to be made within criticism of it.