The Inns and Taverns of "Pickwick": With Some Observations on Their Other AssociationsMatz, B. W. (Bertram Waldrom)
History
The Inns and Taverns of "Pickwick": With Some Observations on Their Other Associations
Matz, B. W. (Bertram Waldrom)
Dickens, Charles, 1812-1870. Pickwick papers; Taverns (Inns) -- England
These deductions and views are not in any way convincing to us;
indeed, we find ourselves in complete disagreement with them,
and few Dickensians, we feel sure, will endorse them.
Mr. Ashby Sterry's argument regarding the "Bull" and the "Blue Boar"
at Rochester proves nothing. Dickens described the "Bull" there in
The Pickwick Papers and called it the "Bull" at Rochester, as he did
the "Leather Bottle" at Cobham, the "Angel" at Bury St. Edmunds, the
"Great White Horse" at Ipswich--to name a few parallel cases. When
he described the "Bull" and called it the "Blue Boar," it was in
another book, Great Expectations, not in Edwin Drood, as stated by
Mr. Ashby Sterry, and its location was a fictitious city, i.e. The
Market Town.
The only case in which Dickens deliberately used the name of one inn
for another was that of the "Maypole" and "King's Head" at Chigwell
in Barnaby Rudge. But in this instance he admitted that he had done
so, although it was scarcely necessary, for the inns were very
dissimilar and the novelist's description of the latter could not
be taken for the former.
The case of the "George" and the "White Hart" is different. They
both stood quite near to each other at the time Dickens was writing
The Pickwick Papers, and were both so named and both famous. There
could be no reason, therefore, for him to describe one and call it
by the other's name.
Although they may not have been identical in all particulars as to
structure, the "George" and the "White Hart" were sufficiently alike
to make it possible for a person of imagination to go over the
"George" and be satisfied that such and such a room might do for
the one in which "Mr. Jingle forfeited all claims to the lady's
hand," and imagine, too, that the galleries could be accepted easily
as those over which "the landlord shouted instructions to Sam in
the Yard." But these flights of fancy could be indulged in even
n the New Inn, Gloucester, or any similar old coaching inn, if one
so desired.
Mr. Percy FitzGerald, the greatest authority on The Pickwick Papers,
is of the same opinion as ourselves on the point, and asks: "Why
should notoriety be attached to the 'White Hart,' from which the
'George' was to be shielded?"
No, the "George" is a wonderfully alluring old inn, and for this
reason Dickensians have a warm place in their hearts for it. But
we have no hesitation in saying that it is not the original of the
"White Hart" of Pickwick and Sam Weller fame.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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