Pickwickian Manners and Customs

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About this book

Percy Fitzgerald uses the world of Pickwick to measure changes in everyday life. His literary commentary examines the inns, coaches, clothes and public customs found in Dickens's fiction, comparing them with conditions in his own day. Debtors' prisons and election practices receive attention alongside servants' uniforms and elaborate accessories. These small details support his larger argument that a comic novel can preserve a record of social habits.

He also traces the characters' travels through places including Rochester, Ipswich, Bath and Birmingham, treating their movements almost like entries in a diary. Fitzgerald connects the scenes with Dickens's childhood, legal work and reporting, presenting these experiences as sources for the story's people and settings. For readers interested in the background of Pickwick, the book offers a companion concerned with how familiar jokes, buildings and local customs fit together.