The author reviews the theme of death in Dickens' novels, particularly his last two, Our Mutual Friend and The Mystery of Edwin Drood. He points out that the period in which Dickens planned and produced these two works was one in which he had experienced the death of his mother and his son, the death of two of his closest friends, and the death of his chief literary rival (Thackeray); furthermore this was a period during which his health began to deteriorate and in which he was involved in a serious railway accident which 'left its mark upon his already shattered psyche'. Manheim concludes that The Mystery of Edwin Drood reflects Dickens' preoccupation with 'death and resurrection, dying as the longed-for method of being unborn and then reborn'.