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
Charles Dickens Augustus Dickens, after a character in Oliver Goldsmith's "The Vicar of Wakefield". When pronounced by anyone with a head cold, "Moses" became "Boses"—later shortened to "Boz". Dickens's own name was considered "queer" by a contemporary critic, who wrote in 1849: "Mr Dickens, as if in revenge for his own queer name, does bestow still queerer ones upon his fictitious creations." He contributed to and edited journals throughout his literary career. In January 1835, the "Morning Chronicle" launched an evening edition, under the editorship of the "Chronicle"s music critic, George Hogarth. Hogarth invited Dickens to contribute "Street Sketches" and Dickens became