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
Drood (novel) Drood (novel) Drood is a novel written by Dan Simmons. The book was initially published on February 1, 2009 by Little, Brown and Company. It is a fictionalized account of the last five years of Charles Dickens' life. The book is a fictionalized account of the last five years of Charles Dickens' life told from the viewpoint of Dickens' friend and fellow author, Wilkie Collins. The title comes from Dickens' unfinished novel, "The Mystery of Edwin Drood". The novel's complex plot mixes fiction with biographical facts from the lives of Dickens, Collins, and other literary and historical figures of the