Death and Mr. Pickwick (99 page)

*   *   *

The office of the
Literary Gazette
faced St Clement Dane's Church and the nine o'clock bell had just finished striking.

‘A pleasant morning is always spoilt by that bell,' said William Jerdan, the
Gazette
's editor, looking out of the window. ‘There's no more cheerless chime in all London.' He arrowed a sour look at a solitary clerk in the corner: a man whose narrow face was born for administration, and to which nose-pinching spectacles added nurture to the gifts of nature. Jerdan then sat down sullenly at a desk, which bore the pile of books and miscellaneous publications submitted by publishers for review.

He had already decided that he would begin his day with an inspection of the fourth number of
Pickwick.
He had been impressed by this publication from the start. In reviewing the first number, he had noted that the design was playful, the satire good-humoured, and the cuts clever and laughable.

But now he read of the first appearance of Sam Weller.

The clerk watched as the editor smiled, thumped the desk in appreciation, and even stood and rubbed his arms in between paragraphs, then reread the whole publication from beginning to end. The enthusiasm was so pure and unwonted that the clerk could occasionally stop work, and observe, and know that he would face no retribution.

At last Jerdan closed the number. Resting his hands on the desk, he contemplated the literature he had just consumed. At last he said: ‘There is a character in this monthly whose patter is perfect for filling any space there is to fill. Do you know what I shall do?'

‘No, sir,' said the clerk.

‘First of all, I shall pass this number over to you. The enjoyment is too good to keep to myself. While you are reading it, I shall write to the author immediately. He must develop the character
to the utmost
.'

*   *   *

A favourable review in the
Literary Gazette
usually meant money in a publisher's coffers and the continued employment of a writer – but Jerdan did not stop at a review. He spread the word about
Pickwick
in person. He could not help himself. He told those he met at dinners. He told politicians. He told the poets of his acquaintance. He told the editors of other journals. They in turn told others. Soon,
thousands
of threads were sent out, exponentially urging the importance of reading
Pickwick.

*   *   *

A person walking down a street would now see a small crowd of people outside a bookshop window looking at the etchings of
Pickwick
. The pictures were the door to the Pickwickian world, to be entered at no cost in pennies or time, but simply by the act of looking. They tempted someone who had not yet read
The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club
to go inside for an examination of the letterpress, especially if others were looking too. It would be an individual of extraordinary resistance to the urges of curiosity who would be unaffected.

Soon, anyone entering a public house would see the flash of at least one rectangular green wrapper. The next day, the person would experience several more sightings of green in the same public house. Then in different public houses, and then in other places, in shop queues, at coffee stalls, all kinds of locations, among all manner of people, like the first buds of spring and then the many buds of spring, spreading across the city like a speeded transition of season, becoming the gardens and the fields of summer. Readers would walk along in the very act of reading, eyes concentrated on the green-wrappered publication. On a patch of grass, there would be men and women together, all reading
Pickwick
, or one reading and the others listening.

*   *   *

Back in the Strand, Thomas Naylor Morton knocked at Chapman and Hall's office.

‘What is it, Mr Morton?' said Chapman.

‘I thought you should know about the letters we are getting about
Pickwick
. There are too many to answer. Here's one: “Just
thinking
about reading
Pickwick
can make me feel better.” And this is another: “I start laughing at
Pickwick
even before I open it.” And this: “I feel better off knowing that Sam Weller is in the world.”'

*   *   *

A labourer sat in a gin shop soon after dawn, reading his
Pickwick
. He was joined by a fishmonger, also with his
Pickwick
, whose reeking skin would normally drive men to anywhere else, but not now, for a jolly mood bonded the two and they talked of the antics on a Pickwickian page. Then came a man who parked his donkey cart outside, and, having given the beast a nosebag, he sipped gin noisily in between quoting Sam Weller; and then a milkmaid came, who put down her pails, and she too stopped for a gin and a few minutes' talk of
Pickwick
.

The surgeon would read
Pickwick
in a cab on his way to the hospital; the omnibus driver would read
Pickwick
while the horses were changed; the blacksmith would read
Pickwick
while waiting for metal in a furnace; the cook would read
Pickwick
when she was stirring the soup; the mother would read
Pickwick
when the child was at her breast. In all the unfilled gaps in people's lives, in all those moments when it was possible for reading to overlap another activity,
Pickwick
appeared. If one were to open a number and cast an innocent eye on the first words, there may
seem
nothing initially amusing about them; but to those who knew they led to Mr Pickwick and Samuel Weller, even an innocent phrase – such as ‘Mr Pickwick's apartments in Goswell Street, although on a limited scale, were not only of a very neat and comfortable description, but peculiarly adapted for the residence of a man of his genius and observation' – would instantly unleash gales of humour. Ordinary men who had never before been noted for a display of emotion were changed. The surly, sallow cheesemonger in a striped apron would now be seen howling with laughter when a housewife entered his corner shop, and a conversation ensued between the two – two people who had never been known for any exchange of words except the terse terms of a sale of cheddar – these two talked about
Pickwick.
The housewife remarked on how difficult it was to listen to her husband reading
Pickwick
aloud to the family without feeling a craving for food, and a piece of strong cheese would do just right. The cheesemonger not only concurred – he gave her an extra two ounces, gratis, as a token of their new friendship.

Nor was this the phenomenon of a single month. There came a new astronomical order to people's lives – never before had strangers chattered in this manner, with an upsurge every thirty days. You watched the queues forming at the booksellers in the early morning, with the customers keen and expectant, even before the vendor had cut the string on the green bundles. The shilling dropped into his palm was like a full miniature moon which had worked its influence upon the mind of the buyer.

The young men of Paternoster Row now had bags stuffed to overflowing with
Picks
. Wagonloads of the green numbers were pulled away.
Pickwick
was loaded on coaches to every part of the country. Tailors sold Mr Pickwick hats to fit every head and Sam Weller corduroy breeches. Bakers sold cakes in the shape of the great man, with icing-sugar stomachs. Tobacconists offered the Penny Pickwick Cigar, whose boxes were decorated with that esteemed gentleman, doffing his hat and bowing, and holding a scroll which extolled the cigar's excellence.

Then piratical playwrights joined in the fun, and crowds flocked to theatres to see unauthorised dramas which brought Mr Pickwick and his friends out of the words and the drawings and into life, and the same crowds would emerge wobbling their tonsils to raucous Pickwickian songs:

Drink! Drink! Drink! Boys

Let us drown the cares of the day!

So sang a group of lads, arm in arm, when they left the City of London Theatre in the evening after a performance of
The Pickwick Club
, or
The Age We Live In
, on their way to a public house.

Think! Think! Think! Boys

Time and tide for no man will stay!

Pickwick
was a benign plague. As each new part arrived, it was as though there had been news of a victory at Waterloo, with the green-wrappered pamphlet as a banner, flourished in sheer elation that
Pickwick
had happened. People forgot who they were and their station in life – they simply wanted to talk to each other about
Pickwick
, and rejoice in its triumph. The word ‘Pickwickian' was heard everywhere – an event, a person, an experience were all Pickwickian – and whilst this word was flexible in meaning, all understood.

Even when not talking about
Pickwick
, or reading it, you could tell the people who
had
read the latest number. They had a look in the eye. And as the publication day of a new number advanced, you saw that look more and more.

In the afternoon it was common to see men who, by the state of them, had walked dusty miles to lay their hands upon a
Pickwick
; while in the evening, in every public house and inn the conversation was of the latest number and little else – and if someone had
not
read
Pickwick
, soon they
had to
. Yes, there were scowlers burying themselves in their elbows at the bar who denounced and dismissed anything new; yes, there were the happy-with-my-lot and the satisfied-with-what-I-have; yes, there were those who said it was throwing twelve penn'orth down the drain; but even such as these saw the green pamphlet with the Putney puntite in people's hands, and they wondered whether they should buy.

Mr Pickwick was
there
, in front of everyone, like a real person, not as a hazy mist of head-hidden words: every man, woman and child had exactly the same image of Mr Pickwick in his or her consciousness. When a dustman talked of Mr Pickwick, a lord could know exactly who was meant because of the pictures.
Your
Mr Pickwick was
my
Mr Pickwick, was a
universal
Mr Pickwick – a being of fiction, a man-created man, was suddenly recognised by all. This was unprecedented in human affairs. It was as though Mr Pickwick actually walked the streets, that you might see him trotting along in his tights and gaiters, walking past railings, pausing at a shop window, or entering a public house. You would know him in a moment, you could point to him, and say, ‘There he is!' Even the royal and the powerful were not noticed or cared about in this way. The king in full regalia would be recognised, but stripped of crown, sceptre and sash, many would ask, ‘Who is he?' if they bothered to ask at all; Lord Melbourne was prime minister, but he would need no disguise to be incognito on many streets. Yet everyone knew Mr Pickwick. The character existed almost as a solid form, and the solitary act of reading was a shared experience.

But some family men insisted on a
first
read in private. That was the privilege of the breadwinner, and the head of the household. A man would come home from work, ignoring the appeal in the eyes of his wife and children, and after supper he would settle down with a cup of tea, not too strong, shut the door, draw the curtains, and open the green wrapper.

There were several pages of illustrated advertisements, to be turned quickly, providing a glimmer of an engraving of a tea service or an eight-day clock. Then came the two Pickwickian etchings, on their somewhat thicker, satisfying paper, instantly setting the mood. Then the story.

For the next hour, the rest of the world – what people call the real world – vanished. The reader indulged himself in pure laughter, perhaps the keenest joy of his life. Not that it was all laughs. There were deeper parts in the pages too. Tragedies that alternated with the comedy, and gave variety. It seemed moreover that the world of Mr Pickwick was a world in which a person had all the time and all the space and all the food and all the drink he might ever need, a world where pleasure could be endless. And how marvellous, the reader thought, as he read of Mr Pickwick's travels, to just take oneself off in a coach, or be idle on a sunny day, and escape the four walls of the parlour and the prospect of the office in the morning. If only one could do such things as the Pickwickians did!

Then the reader placed the number down on his chest, closed his eyes, and rested his head on the chair and watched Mr Pickwick and his companions again with the mind's eye, imagining as best as the memory would allow the actions of the characters, and saying in his own internal voice the things they said. Mr Pickwick was changing from Seymour's original conception. The gullible fool had become the child, the uncorrupted babe, the innocent kitten, reborn in an old man's body. Who would not want to wrap protective arms around this pure soul? Who would not want Mr Pickwick to thrive, to remain innocent, despite the world's tainting seeds?

And when the reader had relived certain parts and reread others, there were more advertisements, then the green wrapper was closed. He might then read aloud to his family. But if he felt tired, he would go to roost and have a good night's sleep and read
Pickwick
to them the next night.

And every month, the accumulated width of green pamphlets on his shelf became a little wider and he could look upon the progress of the green with satisfaction and anticipation and pride.
Pickwick
stretched out ahead like one's own path through life; and who knows what would happen within it next? Other books, finished books, had a sense of the graveyard about them, precisely because they were completed, and once read, were over. But this – this
Pickwick
– was alive, and read in the middle of its creation. The thrill was extraordinary. When people talked about the characters, it was as though they were gossiping about their neighbours, colleagues and friends. And it would always be asked: what will Sam Weller do next month?