A Message from the Sea

"A Message from the Sea" was a short story by Charles Dickens and Wilkie Collins written in 1860 for the Christmas issue of All the Year Round.

A Message from the Sea is a single integrated novella that tells a nautical adventure story combined with a family mystery all resolved through some pretty epically implausible coincidences. Dickens wrote three of the five chapters, and they are clearly recognizable and better, but the other two chapters are perfectly finely executed--with one being an shipwreck/castaway story that puts two enemies together on a small deserted island.

The story revolves around an American captain who delivers a message found in a bottle to a family in small English fishing village (lovingly described by Dickens). This sets off an unfortunate event followed by an attempt to figure out the truth, which leads to another trip, an extended flashback about the shipwreck, and a final classic Dickens resolution of a large, happy group where the wronged are vindicated and the wrong are suitably chastened (in this case in absetenia), and everyone is set to live happily ever after.