Charles Dickens

Although The Wreck of the Golden Mary is basically Charles Dickens’s book, it has more than one contributor, including Dickens’s close friend Wilkie Collins. It is one the earliest stories that deal with shipwrecks. The majestic Golden Mary is on a journey from Cape Horn up to the Californian coast with a variety of social stereotypes onboard, including gold-hunters and families with their little children, when it hits an iceberg and starts to sink. A state of disarray follows as passengers run for their lives and as rescue teams try to overcome their helplessness in front of the sudden disaster. The rescuers finally succeeded in getting all the passengers on the two lifeboats. Yet, suffering from serious shortages in basic subsistence, the crew and the passengers still have to make it to the land. In the midst of the ocean, some of the passengers decide to tell stories to each other to forget about their ordeal, entertaining Dickens’s readers as well. By and large, the narrative displays Dickens’s narratorial and descriptive skills as he paints the different attitudes of the passengers in such a state of terror when the ultimate end seems to loom on the horizon.