The Pickwick Papers: Dickens, and the Law He Knew From Inside
Chapter Twenty-One
Syllabus topic 1.3, "The Pickwick Papers - Charles Dickens"
Pages 109 to 112 of 406
In one line
The Pickwick Papers is a comic novel about an elderly gentleman and his friends travelling about England, in the middle of which the hero is sued for breach of promise of marriage by his landlady, loses, refuses to pay, and goes to a debtors' prison rather than reward the attorneys who brought the case.
In the wording a student can write in an examination: The Pickwick Papers, published in twenty monthly parts between 1836 and 1837, is Charles Dickens's first novel, and its central action is the suit of Bardell against Pickwick, an action for breach of promise of marriage tried at the Guildhall before Mr Justice Stareleigh, which ends in a verdict for the plaintiff with damages of seven hundred and fifty pounds.
Why a law syllabus sets it
Dickens knew the law from the bottom. At fifteen he was a solicitor's clerk in Gray's Inn; he then taught himself shorthand and worked as a reporter in the courts of Doctors' Commons and later in Parliament. He had seen a debtors' prison from the inside as a child, because his father was imprisoned for debt in the Marshalsea, and the whole family went in with him.
So the trial in this novel is not a novelist's guess at what a court is like. The layout of the room, the attorney's seat below the desks of the King's Counsel, the calling of a tales when there are not enough special jurymen, the summing-up read from notes, the paying of court fees in a side room afterwards, are all reported by a man who used to take shorthand notes in exactly such a room.
The book, and how it came to be shaped like this
It began as a commission to write letterpress, that is, words, to accompany a set of sporting plates by an artist. Dickens took the job, changed the balance so that the words led and the pictures followed, and invented a club of gentlemen who travel and observe. It came out in monthly numbers, so the story grew as it went along, and its shape is a series of episodes rather than a single plot.
Two things happened during the run that matter. The arrival of Sam Weller in chapter 10 turned a slow-selling serial into the publishing sensation of the decade. And the Bardell action, planted in chapter 12, gave the loose episodes a thread that runs to chapter 53.
How to use this in an answer. If asked whether the novel has a plot, say that it has one action rather than a plot, that the action is Bardell against Pickwick, and that it is the law that gives the book its spine.
The Pickwick Papers: Dickens, and the Law He Knew From Inside
The cast of the action
| Name | Role |
|---|---|
| Samuel Pickwick | The defendant, a retired gentleman of independent property |
| Martha Bardell | The plaintiff, his landlady in Goswell Street, a widow |
| Master Bardell | Her small son, produced in court for effect |
| Dodson and Fogg | The plaintiff's attorneys, who take the case on speculation |
| Serjeant Buzfuz | The plaintiff's leading counsel |
| Mr Skimpin | Buzfuz's junior |
| Serjeant Snubbin | Pickwick's leading counsel |
| Mr Phunky | Snubbin's junior, whose name the judge cannot get right |
| Mr Perker | Pickwick's attorney |
| Mr Justice Stareleigh | The judge, sitting for the indisposed Chief Justice |
| Sam Weller | Pickwick's servant, and a witness |
| Mrs Cluppins, Mrs Sanders | The plaintiff's witnesses |
| Winkle, Snodgrass, Tupman | Pickwick's friends, and unwilling witnesses against him |
The vocabulary you need before the trial
Breach of promise of marriage. A civil action by which a person, in practice almost always a woman, sued for damages when an engagement was broken. It is dealt with fully in its own chapter.
Serjeant. A senior barrister of a now abolished rank, the Serjeants-at-Law, who had the exclusive right of audience in some courts. Buzfuz and Snubbin are serjeants; Skimpin and Phunky are their juniors.
Attorney. In this period, the lawyer who prepares a case and instructs a barrister, roughly what a solicitor is today. Dodson and Fogg and Perker are attorneys.
Special jury. A jury of men of a higher property qualification, which either party could demand. When too few attend, the court presses common jurymen into the panel, which is called praying a tales.
Damages laid at. The amount the plaintiff claims. Here it is fifteen hundred pounds, and the jury awards seven hundred and fifty.
Costs. The expenses of the litigation. Who pays them is the hinge of the second half of the novel.
The Fleet. A London prison for debtors, where a person could be held until the debt was paid or he was formally discharged.
What Dickens is attacking, stated as three propositions
One. That litigation is a trade, and the parties are its raw material. Dodson and Fogg take the case on speculation and charge nothing unless they get it out of Pickwick, a fact Sam Weller cheerfully announces from the witness box. Mrs Bardell is their instrument, and by chapter 46 she is in the Fleet herself, arrested at their suit for their own costs.
Two. That advocacy is performance, and a jury will be moved by anything. Buzfuz reads a note about chops and tomato sauce as a coded love letter, and the jury takes notes.
Three. That the law's machinery falls hardest on people who cannot pay. Pickwick can afford the damages and refuses on principle. Mrs Bardell cannot, and goes to prison for the costs of an action brought in her name.
The Pickwick Papers: Dickens, and the Law He Knew From Inside
What beginners get wrong
They call the trial a criminal trial. It is a civil action for damages. Nobody is prosecuted, and no one can be imprisoned for the verdict itself, only for refusing to pay what follows from it.
They think Mrs Bardell is the villain. She misunderstands a conversation, and two attorneys build an action on it. Dickens is careful to show her being used.
They date the novel to the trial's period without checking. The action is heard on the fourteenth of February, and the novel appeared in 1836 and 1837.
A worked answer
Question. "Why is a comic novel like The Pickwick Papers set on a law syllabus?"
A model answer. Because its central action is a lawsuit reported by a man who had worked inside the courts, and because that lawsuit is used to make three arguments a law student should meet early. Dickens was a solicitor's clerk at fifteen and then a shorthand reporter in the courts and in Parliament, so the procedure in chapter 34 is observed rather than invented, down to the praying of a tales when too few special jurymen attend and the low seat below the King's Counsel from which an attorney whispers instructions. The first argument is that litigation can be a trade: Dodson and Fogg take the case on speculation and charge nothing unless they recover from Pickwick. The second is that advocacy is performance: a note reading "Chops and tomato sauce" is read to a jury as a coded love letter. The third is that the machinery falls hardest on those who cannot pay: Pickwick can afford the damages and refuses on principle, while Mrs Bardell, who won, is imprisoned in the Fleet on a cognovit for her own attorneys' costs.
What makes it an answer rather than a description. Every claim is attached to a fact in the text, and the three arguments are ranked so that the last one is the most serious.
Quick revision
Dickens: solicitor's clerk at fifteen, then a shorthand reporter in the courts and in Parliament, and the son of a man imprisoned for debt.
Published in twenty monthly parts, 1836 to 1837, fifty-seven chapters.
The action: Bardell against Pickwick, breach of promise of marriage, damages laid at fifteen hundred pounds, verdict for the plaintiff, seven hundred and fifty pounds.
The lawyers: Dodson and Fogg for the plaintiff, instructing Serjeant Buzfuz and Mr Skimpin; Perker for the defendant, instructing Serjeant Snubbin and Mr Phunky. The judge is Mr Justice Stareleigh.
Three targets: litigation as a trade, advocacy as performance, and imprisonment for debt.
Test yourself
1. What is the difference between an attorney and a serjeant in this novel? An attorney prepares the case and instructs counsel, as Perker and Dodson and Fogg do. A serjeant was a senior barrister who argued it in court, as Buzfuz and Snubbin do.
The Pickwick Papers: Dickens, and the Law He Knew From Inside
2. Why is Dickens's own biography relevant? He was a solicitor's clerk and then a shorthand reporter in the courts, so the procedural detail is reported rather than imagined, and his father was imprisoned for debt, which is the experience behind the Fleet chapters.
3. What are the damages claimed, and what are awarded? Claimed, or laid at, fifteen hundred pounds. Awarded, seven hundred and fifty.
4. Is Bardell against Pickwick a criminal case? No. It is a civil action for damages for breach of promise of marriage. Pickwick's later imprisonment is not a punishment for the verdict but the consequence of his refusing to pay the damages and costs.
5. Name the four counsel and say who instructs them. For the plaintiff, Serjeant Buzfuz leading Mr Skimpin, instructed by Dodson and Fogg. For the defendant, Serjeant Snubbin leading Mr Phunky, instructed by Mr Perker.
The rest of this subject
These notes are cut from the University's printed syllabus. Open the syllabus itself, or the past papers, for the same subject.