Pickwick Papers

Ben Allen and Bob Sawyer discuss how Sawyer’s marrying Arabella will be good for him, and Allen encourages him to propose that day. Allen’s aunt comes to speak to the men in Bristol and pulls Sawyer aside to tell him that Arabella has eloped. She wants Sawyer to prepare Allen for the news. However, Sawyer doesn’t deliver the news delicately. Pickwick and Sam enter at that moment and tell Allen that Arabella is well and happy. Allen doesn’t care and threatens Winkle when he discovers that he’s the one who married Arabella. Allen’s aunt comforts her nephew, who, after some drinking, eventually comes around to support his sister’s marriage. Sam and Pickwick go to a nearby inn, where a man in the common room tells a story about his uncle.

In the man’s story, his uncle finds himself in Edinburgh in a time slip (a moment from the past that intrudes on the present) in which he must help a young lady escape from her captors. He and the lady kill her two captors in a sword fight and flee from her other pursuers, but the uncle awakes again in the present during the chase.

Pickwick and Sam pick up Allen and Sawyer on their way to see Winkle’s father. Sawyer, who wasn’t invited, makes a fool of himself and embarrasses the proper Pickwick as he becomes intoxicated while riding on top of the carriage. Sawyer demands that they stop for lunch early in their journey, and the other men get drunk there as well. Pickwick feels somewhat embarrassed to be joined by Sawyer and Allen on his first proper meeting with Mr. Winkle. They arrive at Mr. Winkle’s house late at night, while Allen and Sawyer are still drunk, and Pickwick gives Mr. Winkle a letter from his son. Mr. Winkle says little about the marriage except that he’s disappointed, and he dismisses the men, who are unhappy about this turn of events.

It rains all day on the men’s journey back to London, so they stop at an inn for dinner. There, Sam runs into Mr. Pott from Eatanswill, who tells Sam not to attract attention to him but to take him to Pickwick’s room. The men talk about the Eatanswill newspapers and the town’s political rivalries, and Pott tells Pickwick that he’s there to sabotage a ball held by his enemy political party. A man named Slurk, who happens to be the editor of Pott’s competitor newspaper, arrives at the inn, and the men run into each other in the kitchen and mock the other’s paper. Pott throws Slurk’s paper into the fire, and Slurk hits Pott over the head with his bag. Pickwick is nearly caught in the middle of the fight before Sam comes to his rescue.

The group arrives back in London, where Sam receives a letter from his father that his stepmother has died. Sam takes a temporary leave from Pickwick to visit and console his father. Tony tells Sam that he’s selling his pub and returning to being a coachman, and that Sam’s stepmother left Sam some money. Mr. Stiggins arrives and asks if Mrs. Weller left any money to the church or him, which she didn’t; she told Tony, just before dying, that she regretted her behavior with Stiggins. Tony attacks Stiggins, kicking him until he’s out of the house.

Arabella is sad to learn about Winkle’s father’s reaction, but Pickwick has plans if the young Winkle is financially cut off. Pickwick goes to Perker to discuss this, and his clerk tells him that Perker managed to get Jingle and Job out of jail. They arrive shortly after Perker does and announce their intention to leave England and repay Pickwick one day. Once they leave, Dodson and Fogg arrive, to Perker’s surprise, and Pickwick awkwardly stays for the meeting. Pickwick refuses to shake their hands and berates the men for acting as if they didn’t essentially imprison and rob him and Mrs. Bardell. The chapter ends on a cliffhanger when someone incessantly knocks at the door of Perker’s office.

The person knocking at the door is Joe, and Mr. Wardle quickly goes upstairs to meet with Pickwick, whom he didn’t know had been in jail. They talk about Arabella and Winkle’s elopement and how Wardle recently learned that Emily and Snodgrass want to marry but thought of telling him first rather than eloping. Wardle asks Pickwick and Perker what to do, as he has brought Emily to London.

Joe observes Arabella, Mary, and Snodgrass visiting Emily. Emily bribes Joe not to mention seeing her and Snodgrass embracing. As Snodgrass leaves, Wardle, Pickwick, Winkle, and Allen come in, and Snodgrass gets stuck in Wardle’s bedroom, where Joe finds him. Joe doesn’t know what to do at dinner and confuses the company. Just as Joe is about to admit the truth, Snodgrass comes out and tells the whole story. Arabella convinces Wardle to accept Snodgrass, and they all sit down to a happy dinner.

Tony finds his wife’s will and confirms that he and Sam are to inherit all her money and possessions. The men get Solomon Pell to execute the will, and the men go to the stock exchange and leave much wealthier.

Tony and Sam visit Pickwick, and Tony asks him to watch over his money. Pickwick asks Sam to wait while the two older men speak, and Pickwick tells Tony about Sam’s attachment to Mary and how he wants them to marry. Sam is called back, and Pickwick tells him how he wants to financially help him wed Mary and become independent. Sam, however, again refuses to leave Pickwick’s side even though Pickwick suggests that his rambles around the country are at an end. Pickwick can do nothing to change Sam’s mind and is touched by his loyalty.

Meanwhile, a man (later introduced as the older Mr. Winkle upon his son’s arrival) appears at Arabella’s room and rebukes her for marrying without informing her husband’s father. When the younger Winkle arrives, he says that he isn’t ashamed of his decisions or his wife’s, which appeases his father. The men meet with Pickwick, and all is settled between them.

Pickwick and Sam are absent for a week, and Pickwick’s friends are suspicious of him. Pickwick tells them that he has taken a house in a quiet neighborhood in London and intends to retire there. He wants Emily and Snodgrass to marry there as soon as he takes this house, and he announces that the Pickwick Club has dissolved. The whole Dingley Dell party comes to London for the wedding, and Pickwick is happy and emotional.

Winkle and Arabella settle in London near Pickwick, and Snodgrass and Emily settle in Dingley Dell. Tupman retires to Richmond and never proposes to another woman again, while Allen and Sawyer are appointed as surgeons by the East India Company in Bengal. Sam keeps his word to Pickwick for two years before Pickwick’s housekeeper dies and Pickwick gives Mary the position on the condition that she and Sam marry. Pickwick invests Tony’s money well and retires handsomely. Jingle and Job become “worthy members of society” (1013) but don’t return to England.

Pickwick ages and is less active but spends his time reviewing the memoranda of the Pickwick Club and acting as a godfather to all his friends’ children. His neighbors all idolize him, and he and his friends visit the Wardles once a year. Sam stays attached to Pickwick and Pickwick to Sam, sharing a loyalty that “nothing but death will terminate” (1014).