Augustus Dickens was the younger brother of the famous British novelist and can be considered the "black sheep" of the family. Reportedly he was the original "Boz," the nickname the family game him as a child. He had deserted his blind wife in England and moved to the United States with another woman, with whom he later had three children. He located in Illinois where he was working for the Illinois Central Railroad when he died of tuberculosis. He was thirty-nine years old. (By John Osborne)
Source Citation
"Dickiens, Augustus N.," The American Cyclopedia and Register of Important Events of the Year 1866 (New York: D. Appleton and Company, 1873), 578.