The fruitfulness of Pickwick, and amazing prolificness, that is one of its marvels. It is regularly “worked on,” like Dante or Shakespeare. The Pickwickian Library is really a wonder. It is intelligible how a work like Boswell’s “Johnson,” full of allusions and names of persons who have lived, spoken, and written, should give rise to explanation and commentaries; but a work of mere imagination, it would be thought, could not furnish such openings. As we have just seen, Pickwick and the other characters are so real, so artfully blended with existing usages, manners, and localities, as to become actual living things.
Mere panegyric of one’s favourite is idle. So I lately took a really effective way of proving the surprising fertility of the work and of its power of engendering speculation and illustration. I set about collecting all that has been done, written, and drawn on the subject during these sixty years past, together with all those lighter manifestations of popularity which surely indicate “the form and pressure” of its influence. The result is now before me, and all but fills a small room. When set in proper order and bound, it will fill over thirty great quartos—“huge armfuls” as Elia has it. In short, it is a “Monumental Pickwick.”
The basis of The Text is of course, the original edition of 1836. There are specimens of the titles and a few pages of every known edition; the first cheap or popular one; the “Library” edition; the “Charles Dickens” ditto; the Edition de Luxe; the “Victoria”: “Jubilee,” edited by C. Dickens the younger; editions at a shilling and at sixpence; the edition sold for one penny; the new “Gadshill,” edited by Andrew Lang; with the “Roxburghe,” edited by F. Kitton, presently to be published. The Foreign Editions in English; four American editions, two of Philadelphia, and two of New York; the Tauchnitz (German) and Baudry (French); the curious Calcutta edition; with one of the most interesting editions, viz., the one published at Launceston in Van Diemen’s Land in the year 1839, that is before the name of the Colony was changed. The publisher speaks feelingly of the enormous difficulties he had to encounter, and he boasts, with a certain pride, that it is “the largest publication that has issued from either the New South Wales or the Tasmanian Press.” Not only this, but the whole of the work, printing, engraving, and binding, was executed in the Colony. He had to be content with lithography for the plates, and indeed, could only manage a selection of twenty of the best. He says, too, that even in England, lithography is found a process of considerable difficulty. They are executed in a very rough and imperfect way, and not very faithfully by an artist who signs himself “Tiz.” The poor, but spirited publisher adds that the expense has been enormous—“greater than was originally contemplated,” but he comforts himself with the compliment that “if any publication would repay the cost of its production, it would be the far-famed Pickwick Papers.” On the whole, it is a very interesting edition to have, and I have never seen a copy save the one I possess. I have also an American edition, printed in Philadelphia, which has a great interest. It was bought there by Mrs. Charles Dickens, and presented by her to her faithful maid, Anne. I possess also a copy of the Christmas Carol given by his son, the author, to his father John. Few recall that “Boz” wrote a sequel to his Pickwick—a rather dismal failure—quite devoid of humour. He revived Sam and old Weller, and Mr. Pickwick, but they are unrecognizable figures. He judiciously suppressed this attempt, after making it a sort of introduction to Humphrey’s Clock. Of course, we have it here.
Translations: Of these there are some twenty in all, but I have only the French, German, Russian, Dutch, Norwegian, Swedish, Hungarian.
Then come Selections: “Readings” from “Pickwick”; “Dialogues” from ditto; “Wellerisms,” by Charles Kent and Mr. Rideal.
Dramatic Versions: “The Pickwickians,” “Perambulations,” “Sam Weller,” etc. The “Pickwick” opera, by Burnand; “The Trial in ‘Pickwick’ ”; “Bardell v. Pickwick.” There are “Play Bills”—various. Connected with this department is the literature of the “Readings”—“Charles Dickens as a Reader,” by Kent, and “Pen Photographs,” by Kate Field. Also Dolby’s account of the Reading Tours, and the little prepared versions for sale in the rooms in green covers; also bills, tickets, and programmes galore.
In Music we have “The Ivy Green” and “A Christmas Carol.”
Imitations: “Pickwick Abroad,” by G. W. Reynolds; “Pickwick in America,” the “Penny Pickwick,” the “Queerfish Chronicles,” the “Cadger Club,” and many more.
In the way of Commentaries: The “History of Pickwick,” “Origin of Sam Weller”: Sir F. Lockwood’s “The Law and Lawyers of Pickwick”; Kent’s “Humour and Pathos of Charles Dickens”; accounts from “Forster’s Life” and from the “Letters,” “Controversy with Seymour” (Mrs. Seymour’s rare pamphlet is not procurable), “Dickensiana,” by F. Kitton; “Bibliographies” by Herne Shepherd, Cook and also by Kitton.
Criticisms: The Quarterly Review, the Westminster Review, Fraser’s Magazine, Taine’s estimate, “L’inimitable Boz” by Comte de Heussey, with many more.
Topographical: Hughes’ “Tramp in Dickens-Land,” “In Kent with Charles Dickens,” by Frost; “Bozland,” by Percy Fitzgerald; “The Childhood and Youth of C. Dickens,” by Langton; “Dickens’s London,” by Allbutt; “About England with Dickens,” by Rimmer; Papers in American and English Magazines; “A Pickwickian Pilgrimage,” by Hassard; “Old Rochester,” and others.
Commentaries on the Illustrations: Here is a regular department—Account of “Phiz,” by Kitton; “Life of Hablot K. Browne,” by Croal Thomson; “Life of G. Cruikshank,” Mr. Dexter’s book, and another by Charles P. Johnson.
Next we refer to the Illustrations themselves: The plates to the original edition are by Seymour (7), Buss (2), Phiz-Seymour (7), and by “Phiz” (35). Variations, by “Phiz”; variations, coloured by Pailthorpe; facsimiles of original drawings—altogether about 200. There are Extra Plates by Heath, Sir John Gilbert, Onwhyn (“Sam Weller”), Sibson, Alfred Crowquill, Antony (American), Onwhyn (Posthumous) and Frost, Frederick Barnard (to popular edition); also some folio plates; C. J. Leslie (a frontispiece). “Phiz” published later a series of six, and also a large number of coarse woodcuts to illustrate a cheap edition.
There are also a series of clever extra illustrations by Pailthorpe and others, coloured by the same. We have seen F. Barnard’s illustrations coloured by Pailthorpe. There are here also the original plates re-drawn in Calcutta. They were also reproduced in Philadelphia, with additional ones by Nast. Others were issued in Sydney. There are a number of German woodcut illustrations to illustrate the German translations; some rude woodcuts to illustrate Dicks’ edition: ditto to Penny edition. There is also a set of portraits from “Pickwick” in Bell’s Life, probably by Kenny Meadows; and coloured figures by “Kyd.”
There are many pictures in colours—Pickwick, Weller, &c.—to illustrate Christmas calendars, chiefly “made in Germany.”
The most curious tribute is the issue by the Phonographic Society of “Pickwick” in shorthand; and, finally, “Pickwick” in raised characters on the Braille system for the blind.