Pickwick Papers

On his way to the coach station, Mr. Pickwick is fascinated by his coach driver and, as is his habit, writes down all he has to say in a notebook. When he gets out of the cab, the driver assumes that Pickwick is an informer because he was taking notes on the stories the driver told. The driver punches him as well as Tupman, Snodgrass, and Winkle, who have met Pickwick on the street. Just as the crowd turns against the Pickwickians, a stranger (later introduced as Alfred Jingle), pulls the men from the crowd. The stranger, who has a habit of speaking quickly in incomplete sentences and is dressed shabbily, happens to be going to Rochester, where the Pickwickians are headed, and befriends them on their coach ride to the town.

Pickwick is fascinated by the stranger’s travels and stories and invites him to dinner, where all the men quickly get drunk. At the inn where they’re dining, Tupman discovers that a ball is underway upstairs and longs to go. He offers the stranger an outfit from Winkle’s wardrobe because the stranger has no other clothes. Winkle, Snodgrass, and Pickwick are all asleep or too intoxicated to notice. Tupman and the stranger enter the ball—unannounced, per the stranger’s wishes—and note the social hierarchy within. A military surgeon named Doctor Slammer is courting a rich, elderly widow, but when the doctor is dancing with someone else, the stranger is introduced to the widow and dances with her before introducing her to Tupman. Slammer is furious with both men and feels especially insulted when the stranger won’t tell him his name.

The next morning, a friend of Slammer’s goes looking for the man whom Slammer saw wearing a coat emblazoned with the initials of the Pickwick Club. The stranger was wearing Winkle’s coat, so the man assumes that Winkle is the one he’s looking for and tells him that he insulted Slammer. Winkle, who was intoxicated the previous night and sees that his coat has been recently worn, assumes that he insulted Slammer unknowingly while he was drunk. Winkle accepts Slammer’s challenge to a duel, thinking that he’ll get Snodgrass to tell Pickwick about the duel and prevent it from happening. Snodgrass, however, is incredibly loyal to Winkle and promises not to betray him. When the men meet for the duel, Slammer sees that Winkle isn’t the man he was looking for, and Winkle says that he knew this and only came to avoid dishonoring the Pickwick Club . The men forgive each other, and Slammer agrees to dine with the Pickwickians.

Once Winkle and Snodgrass reach the inn, they’re about to recount to their party what happened to them but see that a new man called Dismal Jemmy has joined them. The stranger from the previous day mentions that he’s involved in the theater and so is Dismal Jemmy, adding that the latter was just about to tell the group a story about another actor. The story, called “The Stroller’s Tale,” concerns a roguish clown who abuses his family and suddenly contracts a terminal fever. Jemmy knows the story because he was at the man’s deathbed and thought his transformation from the fever was remarkable. Just as Pickwick is about to comment on the story, Dr. Slammer and his friends Lieutenant Tappleton and Dr. Payne arrive. Slammer recognizes Tupman and the stranger, and Tupman is forced to reveal the whole story. Tappleton recognizes the stranger as a strolling actor who is performing in a play that a local regiment is seeing tomorrow, so he convinces Slammer to ignore them, and the three militia men leave. Pickwick is incensed and goes after the men to fight them, but the others hold him back and their gathering quickly returns to how it was before Jemmy’s story.

The Pickwickians attend a military review in which a mock storming of the citadel will take place. At one point, Pickwick, Snodgrass, and Winkle, having lost sight of Tupman, are surrounded by the cavalry, which shoots at them with blanks, forcing them to flee. Running away, Pickwick loses his hat and chases it until it stops at the wheel of a carriage, which happens to contain Tupman. The men are invited into the barouche carriage by a Mr. Wardle, Tupman’s friend who once attended a meeting of the Pickwick Club. The men climb into the carriage and, along with Wardle’s friend Mr. Trundle, Wardle’s sister Rachael, his daughters Isabella and Emily, and their servant Joe (often derogatively called the “fat boy”) who has narcolepsy watch the military performance. They eat and drink together, Tupman flirting with Rachael and Snodgrass with Emily. Wardle invites them to dinner the next evening at his nearby estate Manor Farm at Dingley Dell.

The inn where the Pickwickians are staying doesn’t have a carriage for four, so Pickwick must drive a carriage for Snodgrass and Tupman while Winkle rides a horse (things that neither of them have much experience doing) to travel to Dingley Dell. On their way, Winkle loses his horse, and when Pickwick climbs down from the carriage to help him, the horse attached to the carriage breaks free from the carriage, leaving Snodgrass and Tupman in the wreckage. The men try to leave one horse at a local public house, but the owners think it was stolen, so they walk the seven miles to Manor Farm in a state of disarray and with one horse following them. When they arrive at Dingley Dell, Wardle welcomes them and has his servants help the men clean up.

In the parlor at Manor Farm, the Pickwickians meet Mr. Wardle’s mother along with the cleric of Dingley Dell and a few other ladies and gentlemen. The group cheerfully plays cards and eats supper, and Snodgrass asks to hear a poem that the cleric wrote as a young man. The cleric also tells a story about a man who, like the clown from Dismal Jemmy’s story, abused his family. The man’s wife is pious and works hard for her family, but her son, John Edmunds, turns to crime and violence like his father. Only once he’s arrested and sentenced does John realize how much he wronged his mother, who becomes ill and dies. After 14 years of imprisonment, John returns to his home in England, not knowing of his mother’s death and forgotten by his former neighbors. He finds his father, whom he begins to strangle but, before he stops himself, his father bursts a blood vessel and dies. John Edmunds then works for the cleric for three years before dying a humble and penitent man.

The Pickwickians and Mr. Wardle go out to shoot rooks, having heard that Winkle is a good shot, but Winkle ends up accidentally shooting Tupman in the arm. Leaving Tupman with the ladies of the house (including Rachael, who faints when learning of his minor injury), the other men attend a local cricket match. At the match, the Pickwickians see the stranger from Rochester, who finally introduces himself as Alfred Jingle. Their party, along with other spectators and players of the match, all go out to dinner together and joyously toast one another.

Tupman professes his love for Rachael, and Joe observes this event. Pickwick, Snodgrass, Winkle, Wardle, and Jingle return to Manor Farm at a late hour, extremely intoxicated, and all the women notice how attractive Jingle is. Mrs. Wardle (Wardle and Rachael’s mother) is walking in the garden when Joe sees her and tells her he saw Rachael and Tupman kissing, while Jingle, nearby, eavesdrops on the conversation. Within five minutes of entering Manor Farm, Jingle had planned to seduce Rachael and finds her alone, telling her about what he heard. He implies that he loves her and says that Tupman only wants her money and is really in love with Emily. Shortly after this, Jingle asks Tupman to say that Joe dreamed his encounter with Rachael and to pay attention to Emily rather than Rachael at dinner. In addition, Jingle borrows 10 pounds from Tupman. Tupman pays attention to Emily for several nights, calming the fears of Mr. and Mrs. Wardle but angering Rachael and Snodgrass.

At dinner one night, no one can find Rachael or Jingle, and a servant says that they’ve run away together. Wardle and Pickwick go after them for several hours, but just as they catch up with the couple, their carriage overturns. Jingle stops to mock them, which angers Pickwick more than anything else that has happened, and he threatens Jingle to beware if he ever sees him again.

Jingle and Rachael stay at the White Hart Inn, where a servant named Samuel Weller cleans their shoes. Jingle goes to get a marriage license, and Pickwick and Wardle arrive at the inn with a lawyer and ask Sam about the couple. Sam leads the men up to their room just as Jingle presents the marriage license to Rachael. The lawyer, Mr. Perker, tells them that they have no power over Rachael given her age but also tells Jingle that Rachael won’t have money until her mother dies and bribes him to leave her. Jingle leaves much richer and without Rachael, who returns the next day to Manor Farm, heartbroken.

The morning after his return to Dingley Dell, Pickwick learns that Tupman has gone to an inn not too far away and goes there to convince Tupman to return to their traveling party, which he does. On their way back to the inn, Pickwick discovers a stone with engravings on it, which he excitedly takes to the inn with him, convinced that it’s an important item of antiquity. Unable to sleep, Pickwick remembers a manuscript that the cleric gave him at Dingley Dell and reads it. In this story, called “A Madman’s Manuscript,” a man hides his mental illness and revels in concealing his secret. One day, he decides to kill his wife so that she won’t bear a child who could inherit his condition, but she sees him coming with a razor, and he stops. However, the doctors consider her to have a mental health condition afterward.

The Pickwickians travel to London to display Pickwick’s antique stone, which results in historical societies revering Pickwick despite their inability to decipher the stone’s inscription.