Before You Begin

Before you begin.

"It looks as if the whole solid earth had changed into ice, and broken up!" So whispers a young mother on the deck of the Golden Mary, a beautiful new ship running south for the California gold-fields with her passengers aboard. Captain Ravender has spent a lifetime preparing his mind for every peril of storm, shipwreck, and fire at sea. But no preparation is proof against an iceberg in the dark, and within half an hour of striking it the splendid ship is gone, leaving her people crowded into open boats on the wide ocean.

This is a collaboration by two friends at the height of their powers: Charles Dickens, who wrote the opening voyage and wreck, and Wilkie Collins, who carried the survivors through their long ordeal in the boats. Written for the Christmas number of Dickens's magazine in 1856, it belongs to the great age of the sea-story, when shipwreck and survival gripped a nation of seafarers.

What lifts the tale above mere adventure is its tenderness: the discipline and self-sacrifice of Captain Ravender and his mate Steadiman, the love the whole rough company lavishes on the little child they call Golden Lucy, and the way courage, fairness, and human kindness prove, in the end, the only things that can bring people through.

This illustrated edition gathers the tale into six visual movements — recap plates you unlock as you read, each drawing together the company, the voyage, and the turns of the story so far, with never a glimpse of what lies ahead. Turn the page and step aboard the Golden Mary, bound for the gold-fields and the ice.