Charles Dickens
The book finally appears in November 1873 with this title: End of the Mystery of Edwin Drood, followed by this extraordinary subtitle: Dictated from the After-Life to Thomas James by Charles Dickens.
Naturally, the critics pounce on the book and snicker, ready to tear it to pieces. Having read it, their amazement is without bounds. They all have to admit that in this work can be found the style, the verve, the humour and all the mischievousness of the great English fiction writer, and one of them even writes:
“If it were not known that this book has been written by a young man from Brettleboro, it could be believed that it is by Charles Dickens himself…”
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"The Mystery of Edwin Drood" appeared in monthly installments which were interrupted in June 1870 by Dickens' death.
Young Thomas James wrote absolutely nothing else. He had left school at thirteen to become an apprentice printer and only just knew how to read and write. Further, when he read anything, it was one of those magazines for adolescents filled with stories of Indians… He had never opened one of Dickens’ books…
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After the publication of End of the Mystery of Edwin Drood and in light of the critics’ enthusiasm, the editor, who didn’t believe a word of the story recounted by Mrs Blanck, and thought that he had found a young fiction writer full of talent and capable of following on from Dickens, ordered a second book from him… Poor Thomas James refused, saying that he would never be able to imagine a story. So the editor pulled a contract out of his pocket, promised him a lot of money and ordered him to get to work. Tempted by the amount of money promised to him, Thomas finally agreed to try… It was lamentable. He was unable to write three lines correctly, and his personal career stopped there…
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It could be thought that the book had been written by a professional writer, perhaps hiding amongst Mrs Blanck’s other lodgers. However, if this author had existed and was capable of writing such a talented pastiche of Dickens’ style, he would not have remained hidden for long. It’s not the sort of thing that a writer would do.
Some time ago, a book entitled La Chasse spirituelle was presented as an unedited work by Rimbaud. It was an extraordinary, anonymous pastiche. But the whole of the literary world soon found out who had written it. It was Pascal Pia.
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The Thomas James case was studied. The man the most interested in it was the English fiction writer Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (father of Sherlock Holmes) who, in the last years of his life, was passionate about spiritism and the occult sciences. Conan Doyle had Thomas James’ book studied by literary critics. Their conclusion was that the author had acquired the style, the vocabulary and even the manner of thinking of Dickens. Which appeared inexplicable to them, coming from a young, uncultured American boy…
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It is not known what happened to Thomas James. After the publication of his book, he returned to total obscurity.
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Perhaps, in certain cases, we are “helped”… And what if this “help” is what we call inspiration?
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Splatter 
Hi,
That really is extraordinary. You can certainly understand why others thought someone else had written the book, but as you stated, if they did, why did they not say so. Did Charles Dickens use this guy as a way of writing a book? If so why was it not repeated? Answers we will probably never know.
I think that the writer just wanted to finish his book. My question would be: why did he choose a barely-literate American? There could be two explanations. Firstly, not everybody is suitable for this kind of “work”; it would have to be someone who could “receive” him when he transmitted. Secondly, it would have to be someone who was recognized as being incapable of writing it him(or her)self. Mr Dickens obviously made a good choice.
I have been about as removed from spiritualism as a bull and chickens are from New York City! Reading some of your posts of history has me thinking – maybe there’s a connection with what I see, just a different language of terms.
From what I read on your blog, I don’t think that you are at all removed from spirituality. Artists never are. If they were, they wouldn’t be artists. And anyone who gives as much love as you do has to be a very spiritual person. Whether or not you consciously think about it is another matter. I think that the most important thing is to love others, whether they be humans or not. The only reason that I started delving into these things is because some strange things happened to me when I was a child, and continued to some extent later on, and I wanted to find out what was happening to me. One thing just led to another. My motives were really rather selfish at the beginning. Things tend to evolve as you learn more I suppose. I hadn’t really thought about it before. I know that someone or something is helping me a lot. I call it “my angel” but I really don’t know who or what it is. I have learnt to let go a bit and not try to control everything in my life. To just “go with the flow”. This has helped.