PREFACE

It is not claimed for this book that it supplies a long-felt want, or that it is at all necessary to the better understanding of the immortal work which inspired it.  Nor does the author offer any apology for adding yet another volume to the long list of books, already existing, which deal in some way or other with England’s classic book of humour, because it isn’t so much his fault as might appear on the surface.

A year or two ago he contributed to an American paper a series of twenty articles on some of the prominent inns mentioned in the works of Dickens, and before the series was completed he received many overtures to publish them in volume form.  To do so would have resulted in producing an entirely inadequate and incomplete book, whose sins of omission would have far outrun its virtues, whatever they might have been.

As an alternative, he set himself the task of dealing with the inns and taverns mentioned in The Pickwick Papers alone, grafting certain of those articles into their proper place in the scheme of the book, and leaving, perhaps, for a future volume, should such be warranted, the inns mentioned in other books of the novelist.  If the reading of this volume affords half the pleasure and interest the writer has derived from compiling it, the overtures would then seem to have been justified, and the book’s existence proved legitimate.

Needless to say, numerous works of reference have been consulted for facts, and the writer’s indebtedness to them is hereby acknowledged.

He also desires to record his grateful thanks to Mr. Charles G. Harper for permission to reproduce several of his drawings from his invaluable book on The Old Inns of Old England; to the proprietors of The Christian Science Monitor for allowing him to reproduce some of the pictures drawn by Mr. L. Walker for the series of articles which appeared in that paper; to Mr. T. W. Tyrrell, Mr. Anthony J. Smith, and Mr. T. Fisher Unwin for the loan of photographs and pictures of which they own the copyright.

THE INNS AND TAVERNS OF “PICKWICK”

CHAPTER I

“Pickwick” And the coaching age

Dickens, like all great authors, had a tendency to underestimate the value of his most popular book.  At any rate, it is certainly on record that he thought considerably more of some of his other works than he did of the immortal Pickwick.  But The Pickwick Papers has maintained its place through generations, and retains it to-day, as the most popular book in our language—­a book unexampled in our literature.  There are persons who make a yearly custom of reading it; others who can roll off pages of it from memory; scores who can answer any meticulous question in an examination of its contents; and a whole army ready and waiting to correct any misquotation that may appear in print from its pages.  All its curiosities, lapses, oddities, anachronisms, slips and misprints have been discovered by commentators galore, and the number of books it has brought into existence is stupendous.