Hello and welcome to the final episode of our series on Charles Dickens.

We left you at the end of the last episode with Dickens, having made it right to the top,

he's bought the house on the hill that he dreamt about as a child.

He's acclaimed as a writer from Russia to America as a modern great. He's one of the most

famous men in the whole of Britain. But he has shocked London society by separating from his wife

Catherine, and he has a secret, one that could ruin him if it becomes public.

From Wondery and Gollhanger, I'm Peter Frank O'Hopern.

I'm Afwa Hirsch.

And this is Legacy, the show that tells the lives of the most extraordinary men and women ever to have lived,

and asks if they have the reputation that they deserve.

This is Charles Dickens, Episode 4, The Final Curtain. 9th of June 1865, Kent.

Charles Dickens looks at his pocket watch

and then at the two women sitting opposite him on the Folkestone London train.

They should be easily backed by 5pm. He smiles at the

younger of the two women, admiring her angular features. Suddenly, the carriage jolts twice, lurching,

forward and back. Passengers are screaming and crying out.

In a confusion, he feels someone grabbing him. Let us join hands and die friends, says a panicked-looking Nellie Turner.

She was the young woman he was smiling at. The other woman, Nellie's mother, screams.

Dickens tries to calm them.

He tells them to say put and try and keep very still as the carriage is swaying alarmingly.

He will go and find out more.

Only after he's carefully climbed out of the train can he see the chaos.

...