Pickwick Papers

The Pickwickians and Dowlers rent a home together and enjoy taking the waters in Bath. Pickwick reads a story called “The True Legend of Prince Bladud,” in which a prince is promised to a princess, but he’s in love with someone else, so his father shuts him up in a tower. Prince Bladud escapes and tries to go to the woman he loves. He ends up in Bath, where he dies, and it’s said that the waters of Bath spring from the prince’s tears.

Everyone in the house except Dowler goes to bed while he’s waiting for his wife to return from a party, but he too falls asleep before she arrives. Winkle hears her knocking and goes to answer the door, but the wind blows him out from behind the locked door in his pajamas, and he collides with Mrs. Dowler’s sedan chair when he sees ladies coming down the street. Others in the house, now awake, look out and think that Mrs. Dowler is running away with another man. Dowler comes down with a knife, and Winkle jumps out of the sedan, barely managing to get inside the house and lock his door before Dowler catches him.

Earlier that morning, Mr. Bantam’s footman, John Smauker, invites Sam is invited to a soiree for footmen in Bath. He makes friends with many of the other footmen but isn’t there when Mrs. Dowler and Winkle are locked out of the house. The next morning, Pickwick tells Sam that Winkle has left, and Sam learns that he has gone to Bristol. Pickwick asks him to fetch Winkle and bring him back by any means he can, even if he must “knock him down” (673).

Winkle gets lost in Bristol and enters a surgeon’s office to ask for directions. The surgeon happens to be Bob Sawyer, who is excited to see Winkle, as is Benjamin Allen, who is also there. After much drinking, Allen recounts his miseries to Winkle regarding how his sister Arabella doesn’t care for Sawyer, whom he wants her to marry, and how he has taken Arabella to the nearby country. Winkle is heartened by the idea that Arabella might have turned Sawyer away because she loves him. Sawyer is called away, and Winkle goes to a coffee shop, where he unexpectedly runs into Dowler, whom he’s afraid will attack him. However, the man apologizes to him for threatening him the previous night because others since explained the situation to him. Sam arrives at the inn where Winkle is staying in Bristol in the middle of the night and refuses to leave until Winkle agrees to go with him. However, Winkle wants to stay longer to find Arabella, and Sam agrees under the condition that he gets the key to Winkle’s room so that he can’t escape again.

Winkle has written a letter to Pickwick, who arrives in Bristol the next day to help Winkle and Sam find Arabella. Sam runs into Mary, the housekeeper of Mr. Nupkins, and tells her about Winkle’s wish to find Arabella, who happens to live next door to the house they’re currently at. That evening, Mary helps Sam sneak into the garden where Arabella often walks and arranges a meeting between her and Winkle. Sam, Pickwick, and Winkle go to Arabella’s garden, where Winkle professes his love for her.

The Pickwickians return to London, where a sheriff’s officer named Mr. Namby finds Pickwick and arrests him for not paying his legal fees. Perker arrives too and is ready to have Pickwick pay his bill, but Pickwick is determined to go to jail rather than pay. Namby, Perker, and Pickwick go to see a judge, and Pickwick is taken to the Fleet Street Debtors’ Prison.

Pickwick is horrified by the conditions in the prison. Sam, who has accompanied him, speaks about the unfairness of prison and the inequality of punishment for different classes. Shortly after Pickwick falls asleep, a few drunken men stumble into his room. These men are named Smangle and Mivins, who try to swindle him and end up sharing his room.

By the time Pickwick awakes the next day, Sam is at the prison and argues with Smangle and Mivins. Pickwick visits a jailer to see about his lodgings for the next night; it’s to be a room with three roommates, which Pickwick finds unsuitable. These men inform Pickwick that money works the same way in the prison as it does outside and that he could buy a room of his own if he wanted to. The jailer arranges for Pickwick to rent a room from another prisoner who has been there for decades, and the jailer furnishes the room for an extra charge. Pickwick wishes to see the “poor side” of the jail, where no one is able to pay for specific lodgings or food like Pickwick. He’s shocked by the destitution of that side of the jail but even more shocked to see Jingle, as well as Job, who still accompanies his incarcerated employer. Pickwick speaks to Jingle and, taking pity on him, gives Job a coin. Sam visits Pickwick again, and Pickwick tells him that he shouldn’t visit him anymore but that he’ll still receive his wages. Pickwick suggests that Sam work for one of his friends, but Sam refuses all of Pickwick’s offers and leaves with the intention of continuing to work for Pickwick.

Tony runs into Sam at the courts, and Sam tells him about his last conversation with Pickwick. They formulate a plan to get Sam into prison: Sam borrows money from his father, who gets his lawyer friend to have Sam arrested for debt, an act that this friend, Solomon Pell, finds honorable. Once Sam is in the prison, he goes straight to Pickwick’s room and explains that his father won’t let him out of prison until Pickwick also leaves.

Pickwick and Sam argue on principle about Sam’s being in prison, and Sam refuses to tell Pickwick who arrested him. Sam rents a bed in a cobbler’s room who was imprisoned for 12 years because of some difficulties in the Chancery Court. Smangle visits Pickwick and tells him that three men want to see him: Tupman, Winkle, and Snodgrass visit Pickwick, who tells them all what Sam has done. Winkle is surprised because he hoped to have Sam accompany him out of town, and Sam denies to Pickwick that he knew about this. After his friends leave, the jailer tells Pickwick that the man who rented him his room is dying, and Pickwick asks to see him in the prison’s infirmary on his deathbed.

Tony visits Sam in prison with his wife and Stiggins, who want to speak with him. Stiggins tries to sermonize Sam, who has gotten him and his stepmother drunk, and his words have no effect on Sam or his father. Tony tells Sam about a plan to get Pickwick out of prison by smuggling him inside a piano. Pickwick finds Sam and asks him to walk with him, seeing Jingle and Job coming toward him. Sam is astonished to see that Pickwick appears to have forgiven the men and is still suspicious of Job. Sam pities him and buys him a drink, after which he learns that Pickwick has bought Job and Jingle a room as well as food. Pickwick finds the tumultuous scenes of the prison deeply disturbing and for the next three months rarely leaves his room despite the entreaties of Perker and Sam to pay his debt.

Mrs. Bardell and her friends take a trip to Hampstead, where Mr. Jackson from Dodson and Fogg visit them. Jackson tells Mrs. Bardell that she’s wanted in court and needs to leave immediately. However, instead of taking her to court or their offices, Jackson takes Mrs. Bardell and her companions to Fleet Prison to pay her legal fees (which Dodson and Fogg previously said she wouldn’t have to pay if they could collect them from Pickwick). Sam sees Mrs. Bardell and sends Job to summon Perker.