Mesmerism in The Mystery of Edwin Drood

In the mid-nineteenth century mesmerism or “animal magnetism” as it was called, riveted the attention of Charles Dickens and many other eminent men of letters such as Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Harriet Martineau, Charles Kingsley or William Makepeace Thackeray. The practice endowed the mesmerist with almost supernatural powers to yield over others—an ability to cure various ailments, a possession of clairvoyance or an unusual rapport between the magnetiser and his subject, as John Elliotson—the pioneer of mesmerism in England writes: “a look may magnetise: and we are told that all these effects may sometimes be produced at great distances by the mere volition of the magnetiser” (660-661). For a time Dickens became a “magnetiser” himself practising mesmerism on his wife, sister-in-law and a friend—Madame de la Rue. Although by 1870 the practise had lost its public credibility and Dickens’s lively interest, it left its traces in his novels. The aim of the article is to analyse the role of mesmeric influence in The Mystery of Edwin Drood, which was half-finished when the novelist died in 1870.