The Wreck of the Golden Mary by Charles Dickens, 1856

A review of a poignant story by the famous storyteller for Friday’s Forgotten Books at Patti Abbott’s blog Pattinase.

In 1898, American writer Morgan Robertson wrote Futility or The Wreck of the Titan which bore a close and uncanny resemblance to the sinking of the ‘RMS Titanic’ fourteen years later, in 1912. 

Both the fictional steamship ‘Titan’ and the real-life passenger liner ‘Titanic’ set sail from England and were cruising toward New York when they collided with an iceberg in the North Atlantic Ocean and sank.

When Robertson wrote his novella, scarcely would he have imagined that the fate of his ‘Titan’ would prove to be a premonition for the ‘RMS Titanic.’

What Robertson, the son of a ship captain, may or may not have known is that a very famous novelist of the Victorian era had written a somewhat similar story nearly fifty years before he did.

The basic plot of The Wreck of the Golden Mary by Charles Dickens is the same as The Wreck of the Titan.

The ‘Golden Mary,’ a majestic ship with a barque of three hundred tons and carrying more than forty passengers and crew, hits an iceberg and sinks off the coast of Latin America in the South Atlantic Ocean. The ship, commanded by the middle-aged Captain William George Ravender—the best and the bravest of seafarers—had left the shores of England and was on its way to California to trade cargo for gold nuggets. 

The California Gold Rush is incidental to the story. However, it was interesting to see Dickens weave a story around a momentous period in America’s history that saw diggers and emigrants from across the world, especially Europe, rush to the US west coast for a share of the yellow metal.

Dickens focuses on the sad fate of the shipwrecked passengers and crew of the ‘Golden Mary,’ particularly Captain Ravender, a great believer in duty before self; John Steadiman, his chief mate and trusted friend; Mrs. Atherton, a bright-eyed young woman sailing to join her husband in California, along with their little daughter, Lucy; Miss Coleshaw, a sedate young woman in black; and Mr. Rarx, an old and unpleasant gentleman obsessed with the gold discovery.

The captain and his passengers and crew spend nearly a month in their lifeboats—a long boat and a surf boat—wet, cold, and hungry, and drifting aimlessly somewhere in the South Atlantic, often at the mercy of stormy seas and hostile weather conditions. Through it all, Dickens brings out the innate strengths of his characters, particularly Captain Ravender and John Steadiman, who forget their own mental and physical distress to keep alive the hopes and spirits of those under their charge.

More than anything else, The Wreck of the Golden Mary is a metaphor for the tragic fate of Golden Lucy, the three-year old girl with golden curls who endears herself to everyone first aboard the ill-fated ship and then on the lifeboats. Both Mary and Lucy are buried at sea.

There are many affecting scenes in this beautiful story which Charles Dickens narrates through the gentle voice of the captain and his chief mate.

I liked several passages in this novella including the one I reproduce below.

As the child had a quantity of shining fair hair, clustering in curls all about her face, and as her name was Lucy, Steadiman gave her the name of the Golden Lucy. So, we had the Golden Lucy and the Golden Mary; and John kept up the idea to that extent as he and the child went playing about the decks, that I believe she used to think the ship was alive somehow—a sister or companion, going to the same place as herself. She liked to be by the wheel, and in fine weather, I have often stood by the man whose trick it was at the wheel, only to hear her, sitting near my feet, talking to the ship. Never had a child such a doll before, I suppose; but she made a doll of the Golden Mary, and used to dress her up by tying ribbons and little bits of finery to the belaying-pins; and nobody ever moved them, unless it was to save them from being blown away.