Charles Dickens Dickens was involved in the Staplehurst rail crash. The train's first seven carriages plunged off a cast iron bridge that was under repair. The only first-class carriage to remain on the track was the one in which Dickens was travelling. Before rescuers arrived, Dickens tended and comforted the wounded and the dying with a flask of brandy and a hat refreshed with water, and saved some lives. Before leaving, he remembered the unfinished manuscript for "Our Mutual Friend", and he returned to his carriage to retrieve it. Dickens later used this experience as material for his short ghost story, "The
Dickens in America in London for advice on what to do and see. The experts include the late Cedric Charles Dickens, great grandson of the Inimitable; Professor Michael Slater, one of the world's most renowned Dickens scholars and author of a recently released biography of Dickens; Dr. Paul Schlicke, then President of the Dickens Fellowship; Professor Lisa Jardine from the University of London and Jan Mark, writer and critic. The conversation ranges from advice on some of the lesser known places to go, to a discussion of what Dickens expected to do and accomplish. The Dickensians show Miriam the original Daniel Maclise drawing