The Project Gutenberg eBook, Pickwickian Manners and Customs, by Percy
Fitzgerald

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Title: Pickwickian Manners and Customs

Author: Percy Fitzgerald

Release Date: June 25, 2007 [eBook #21921]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII)

***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PICKWICKIAN MANNERS AND CUSTOMS***

Transcribed from the [1897] Roxburghe Press edition by David Price, email
ccx074@pglaf.org

{Book cover: cover.jpg}

PICKWICKIAN
MANNERS AND CUSTOMS,

BY

PERCY FITZGERALD.

THE
_ROXBURGHE PRESS_,
LIMITED,
FIFTEEN, VICTORIA STREET,
WESTMINSTER.

{Bentley's Miscellany cartoon: p0.jpg}

Inscribed
TO
AUGUSTINE BIRRELL, M.P.

PICKWICKIAN MANNERS AND CUSTOMS.

No English book has so materially increased the general gaiety of the
country, or inspired the feeling of comedy to such a degree as, "The
Pickwick Club." It is now some "sixty years since" this book was
published, and it is still heartily appreciated. What English novel or
story is there which is made the subject of notes and commentaries on the
most elaborate scale; whose very misprints and inconsistencies are
counted up; whose earliest "states of the plates" are sought out and
esteemed precious? "Pickwick," wonderful to say, is the only story that
has produced a literature of its own--quite a little library--and has
kept artists, topographers, antiquaries, and collectors all busily at
work.

There seems to be some mystery, almost miracle, here. A young fellow of
four-and-twenty throws off, or rather "rattles off," in the exuberance of
his spirits, a never-flagging series of incidents and characters. The
story is read, devoured, absorbed, all over the world, and now, sixty
years after its appearance, new and yet newer editions are being issued.
All the places alluded to and described in the book have in their turn
been lifted into fame, and there are constantly appearing in magazines
illustrated articles on "Rochester and Dickens," "Dickens Land,"
"Dickens' London," and the rest. Wonderful! People, indeed, seem never
to tire of the subject--the same topics are taken up over and over again.
The secret seems to be tha