On the Subject of Dickens as Super-Celeb

[junediamanti]

Someone earlier on compared Charles Dickens to JKR in terms of their 
popularity at their respective times.  

I was going to reply to this, but have been unable to check my 
facts, can anyone help me?

Dickens did not usually write books as books but rather as serials - 
now this was a guy who could really live with a deadline.  Many of 
his most famous works were initially serialised in periodicals and 
because there was very little in the way of alternative amusement, 
his fans got very excited indeed about the next instalment of his 
works (remind you of anything?).  There is a legendary and maybe 
apocryphal tale about people in the US in the 19th Century 
stampeding the docks as a ship arrived with the latest episode of 
either Little Dorrit or perhaps it was the Old Curiousity Shop, and 
in the stampede, several people got knocked into the water and 
drowned. It may have been in Baltimore, not sure.

I've run a couple of google searches on this, but can't get this 
story -though I am 99% certain it is true in outline if not strictly 
in detail. Probably I'm asking it the wrong thing.  Anyone know 
more?  It certainly beats even people queueing outside the bookshops 
before midnight - though the sale of OOP is probably the nearest 
thing to it.

June