Великая английская литература
Сегодняшнее заседание нашего английского клуба будет посвящено великой английской литературе.
Minute book of the Pickwick Club, running from 8 January 1837 until 12 December 1841, with two further entries for 8 and 22 October 1843, held under the chairmanship of Samuel Pickwick, Esq., G.C.M.P.C., recording the convivial doings of Pickwick, Winkle, Wardle, Snodgrass and others, kept in a variety of (generally rough) hands, the inside cover inscribed "The Pickwick Club Book No. 1", dated 22 March 1840, and bearing the ownership inscription of James Plater, dated 18 April 1840; the first section headed "Sunday 8th January 1837", the second headed "Pickwick Club Book/ Commencing Sept.r 1st 1839"; with a facetious coat-of-arms drawn in pencil loosely inserted as well as a newspaper cutting of 1930 describing the volume, c.200 pages, on a mixed stock of paper (one leaf watermarked 1839), many entries roughly scored-through, dust-stained and much thumbed, a few leaves removed, nevertheless in sound condition, contemporary half calf over boards, with paper label on upper cover marked "The/ Pickwick/ Club Book", brass clasp-fastener on upper cover (lacking the clasp on the lower), soiled, 4to, [London], 1837-1843
Это "Записки Пиквинского клуба", который работал в Лондоне с 1837 по 43 гг.
ORIGINAL MINUTES OF THE PICKWICK CLUB OF LONDON, COMMENCING IN JANUARY 1837 and running until the early 1840s. The first serialised number of Dickens's fictional counterpart had appeared at the end of March 1836; but it was not until the quintessential Cockney, Sam Weller, was introduced in the fourth part, published in June, that Pickwick can be said to have made its mark, with innumerable spin-offs such as joke books, pirated copies, theatrical adaptions, and the present club, founded six months after Sam Weller first put in his appearance.
Our club, like its fictional inspiration, was clearly based in London. Many of the topics raised for debate imply familiarity with the city, especially the East End, as for example "Which is the finest Church, Bermondsey New Church or Shadwell Church"; "Which is the finest Steeple Bow or Saint Brides" (marked "St Brides"); and "which is the finest Church of the two St George's East or St Ann's Limehouse"; other London topics include "Whether it is not a bad spec. for this New Gin Shop to open in Dean St" (which, it is decided, "It is not"); "Which was the first public House in London that burnt Gas" (the honour going to "the 2 Brewers Mill Bank"); or whether it would "be proper or not to pull down St Saviours Church" (this being almost certainly a reference to the newly-built church of that name in Belgravia).
In as much as the meetings of Dickens's fictional club can be associated with a specific locale, the honour is usually accorded to the George & Vulture in St Michael's Alley, Cornhill. It was here, during the serialization of the novel, that a circulating library is recorded as having held a meeting, which resolved, on 30 March 1837 – several months after the foundation of our club – to order a copy of the novel when it came out in volume form (this now being in the British Library). It is also here that the City Pickwick Club, under the auspices of the Dickens Fellowship, hold their meetings. This august institution – excessive ribaldry apart – has much in common with our club, the rules stating that 'On initiation a member is given a name taken from the "Papers" and he keeps this whilst being a member'. But, however authentic its locale, the City Pickwick Club dates back only to 1909. (Quite a few other Pickwick Clubs have sprung up since ours, including the Pickwick Bicycle Club of Hackney; the Pickwick Club of Boston, Massachusetts, founded in 1857, where a 'carved figure of Mr. Pickwick... greets all ye merry members who enter the door'; the Pickwick Club of Rochester, England, which shares with our club an enthusiasm for levying fines: 'On all occasions when the Club shall be forgathered on Club business all members will be addressed by their character names. Failure to do this will result in the imposition of a fine... all members and guests are required to say, "Cheers" before imbibing or risk the levy of a fine'; the Pickwick Club of Swansea; the Pickwick Club of Lafayette, Indiana, reserved for women only; and the Pickwick Club of Corsham, near the village of Pickwick, reserved for nudists only).
But the chief interest of our minutes is what they tell us of the original readership of The Pickwick Papers, or at least one significant section of that readership. Their political sympathies were radical. For example, one motion that came up for discussion was "Whether the Chartists are not absurd in their demands"; to which the Club moved that it was "not absurd". Early in November 1839 John Frost, the former Mayor of Monmouth, led a Chartist march on Newport, during which some two dozen people died. On 12 January 1840, the Pickwick Club debated the motion of "Were the Jury in Frost's Case justified in finding a verdict of Guilty on his Indictments", to which they returned the answer: "Certainly not". On 16 January 1840, for the last such time in England, Frost was sentenced to be hanged, drawn and quartered. Three days later the Club debated "Whether the sentence passed on Frost is not against common feelings of humanity", to which the answer returned was that "it is". When asked "To consider what remedy will be efficient to ameliorate the Condition of the People", the Club answered: "universal suffrage". Similarly, when asked "Whether Hanging tends to decrease the Crimes for which it intended", they replied "It does not".
Nor do they seem to have been over enamoured of the young Victoria, who succeeded to the throne on 20 June 1837, during the run of Pickwick and the early years of the Club. At the same meeting that condemned Frost's sentence, a motion was put to "Thank the Duchess of Kent [Victoria's mother] for the amiable manner she has educated the Queen", which received the response: "Ought not to be thanked say all the Members". Elsewhere the motion was carried that royalty was "the very worst of humbug". While the proposal that "the Members of the Club ought to sing the National Anthem on their extraordinary meetings" received the answer, recorded by the minutes in capital letters, "NO".
Not surprisingly, the members show a taste for picaresque fiction. On 27 May 1838, they are asked: "Is not the Pickwick in America, a very good work and worth a penny a number"; and on another occasion whether they preferred Fenimore Cooper to Fielding (Fielding was preferred), or whether Cooper's fellow American Robert M. Bird was "as good a novelist as Smollet" (Smollet won). Occasionally they exhibit a taste for self-improvement, as when, on 11 December 1841, it is stated that "Mr Lowton will deliver a lecture upon the principles of the steam Engine". In keeping with this progressive spirit, the Club decides that "Asphalt pavement" is "the superior to the Yorkshire flagstone". Although when asked "Whether Railroads are a more convenient way of Travelling than Stage Coaches", they opt for stage coaches.
But, it must be confessed, they were generally less high-minded, and indeed more typical of the general tenor of these minutes are subjects such as "Why should there not be a New set of Gobbing Pots", which is marked "Mr Wardle to present one", or "Whether its better to have a pocket Handkerchief on a cold day or use your fingers". Indeed, the adjective 'Victorian' is not the first that springs to mind in characterizing members of our Club; the minutes of which, on 12 December 1841, all but splutter out with the doggerel: "damn and bugger the pickwick Club/ Dam and bugger the prick, wick Club".
(Further research may well uncover more information about the James Plater who has put his name to this volume. On the page facing this final doggerel, he is recorded as attending a meeting of the Club on 11 December 1841, in propria persona, accompanied by his wife and daughter. He may possibly be the silversmith who is recorded as apprenticed to Thomas Wilkes Barker in 1835-36 and living at 15 Compton Street, Clerkenwell; another James Plater, presumably a father or uncle, having also been apprenticed to Barker in 1806 and practising in 1831: see Sarah Tanner's Silversmith Research page, the online records of the livery companies, and the London Gazette for 1831. The "Baronial Arms" loosely inserted into the volume, facetious though they are, are drawn with some of the skill that one would expect from a silversmith.)
WITH its cast of eccentrically colourful characters engaged in a series of hapless adventures, Charles Dickens’s first novel, The Pickwick Papers, was a literary sensation.
Its success was such that, following its publication in 1837, Pickwick Clubs were founded in honour of the fictional society set up by the novel’s central character, Samuel Pickwick.
Now, nearly two centuries on, the papers of one such real-life Pickwick Club are to be auctioned after being discovered in a doctor’s library – and they reveal a politically radical streak running through Victorian London.
The bound volume of minutes from the club’s meetings are thought to be the only surviving documents of any of the dozens of Pickwick Clubs founded in reaction to the astonishing success of Dickens’s novel, originally published in monthly instalments between March 1836 and November 1837.
They were discovered among the rich literary collection of Hugh Selbourne, a French-born doctor who practised in Edinburgh and Manchester and died in 1973.
As with Dickens’s fictional Pickwick Club, the many real-life associations which the novel inspired were principally gatherings of like-minded men and women, and provided an excuse for them to socialise, drink and debate the matters of the day.
The papers being auctioned record the debates held by a Pickwick Club which met in the City of London and their 200 pages include a record of the club’s debate in January 1840 on the extension of voting rights to all working men. This was the key demand of the Chartist movement, which just three months earlier had staged a near-insurrection in Newport, led by John Frost, the former Mayor of Monmouth, during which some 22 people were killed by troops.
The Pickwick Club voted in favour of universal suffrage, and expressed its support for the Chartists and its opposition to the guilty verdicts brought against the participants in the Newport rising, including the sentence of death by hanging passed on Frost. When asked “Whether Hanging tends to decrease the Crimes for which it intended”, the members replied “It does not”.
In a similarly bold move the club’s members were critical of the young Victoria, who succeeded to the throne on June 20, 1837, during the early years of the club. A motion put to “Thank the Duchess of Kent [Victoria’s mother] for the amiable manner she has educated the Queen” received the response that she “Ought not to be thanked say all the Members”.
Elsewhere a motion was carried that royalty was “the very worst of humbug” and, to add republican insult to injury, the proposal that “the Members of the Club ought to sing the National Anthem on their extraordinary meetings” received the unambiguous answer “NO”, recorded in capital letters.
The Pickwick Club’s radicalism is likely to have chimed with Dickens’s own views. His sympathies for the poor were evident in novels such as Oliver Twist, Hard
Times and Our Mutual Friend, and he was trenchant in his mockery of the “humbug” and hypocrisy of Britain’s ruling elite.
There were also rather more prosaic matters discussed, such as “Why should there not be a New set of Gobbing Pots”, or “Whether it’s better to have a pocket Handkerchief on a cold day or use your fingers”, and “Whether it is not a bad spec. for this New Gin Shop to open in Dean St” (It was decided “It is not”).
Pickwick Club members were allocated the name of a character from the book for club meetings such as that of Mr Pickwick’s cockney servant and shrewd companion Sam Weller – a cult hero among Victorian readers.
Little is known about the Pickwick Club’s real-life members, although, given its location, they are likely to have included clerks, solicitors, barristers and members of London’s craft trades.
Two whose names are recorded, along with lines of doggerel verse, are James Plater, a silversmith living in Clerkenwell, and his father or uncle, also James and also a silversmith.
https://t.me/SturmanG/2698
Minute book of the Pickwick Club, running from 8 January 1837 until 12 December 1841, with two further entries for 8 and 22 October 1843, held under the chairmanship of Samuel Pickwick, Esq., G.C.M.P.C., recording the convivial doings of Pickwick, Winkle, Wardle, Snodgrass and others, kept in a variety of (generally rough) hands, the inside cover inscribed "The Pickwick Club Book No. 1", dated 22 March 1840, and bearing the ownership inscription of James Plater, dated 18 April 1840; the first section headed "Sunday 8th January 1837", the second headed "Pickwick Club Book/ Commencing Sept.r 1st 1839"; with a facetious coat-of-arms drawn in pencil loosely inserted as well as a newspaper cutting of 1930 describing the volume, c.200 pages, on a mixed stock of paper (one leaf watermarked 1839), many entries roughly scored-through, dust-stained and much thumbed, a few leaves removed, nevertheless in sound condition, contemporary half calf over boards, with paper label on upper cover marked "The/ Pickwick/ Club Book", brass clasp-fastener on upper cover (lacking the clasp on the lower), soiled, 4to, [London], 1837-1843
Это "Записки Пиквинского клуба", который работал в Лондоне с 1837 по 43 гг.
ORIGINAL MINUTES OF THE PICKWICK CLUB OF LONDON, COMMENCING IN JANUARY 1837 and running until the early 1840s. The first serialised number of Dickens's fictional counterpart had appeared at the end of March 1836; but it was not until the quintessential Cockney, Sam Weller, was introduced in the fourth part, published in June, that Pickwick can be said to have made its mark, with innumerable spin-offs such as joke books, pirated copies, theatrical adaptions, and the present club, founded six months after Sam Weller first put in his appearance.
Our club, like its fictional inspiration, was clearly based in London. Many of the topics raised for debate imply familiarity with the city, especially the East End, as for example "Which is the finest Church, Bermondsey New Church or Shadwell Church"; "Which is the finest Steeple Bow or Saint Brides" (marked "St Brides"); and "which is the finest Church of the two St George's East or St Ann's Limehouse"; other London topics include "Whether it is not a bad spec. for this New Gin Shop to open in Dean St" (which, it is decided, "It is not"); "Which was the first public House in London that burnt Gas" (the honour going to "the 2 Brewers Mill Bank"); or whether it would "be proper or not to pull down St Saviours Church" (this being almost certainly a reference to the newly-built church of that name in Belgravia).
In as much as the meetings of Dickens's fictional club can be associated with a specific locale, the honour is usually accorded to the George & Vulture in St Michael's Alley, Cornhill. It was here, during the serialization of the novel, that a circulating library is recorded as having held a meeting, which resolved, on 30 March 1837 – several months after the foundation of our club – to order a copy of the novel when it came out in volume form (this now being in the British Library). It is also here that the City Pickwick Club, under the auspices of the Dickens Fellowship, hold their meetings. This august institution – excessive ribaldry apart – has much in common with our club, the rules stating that 'On initiation a member is given a name taken from the "Papers" and he keeps this whilst being a member'. But, however authentic its locale, the City Pickwick Club dates back only to 1909. (Quite a few other Pickwick Clubs have sprung up since ours, including the Pickwick Bicycle Club of Hackney; the Pickwick Club of Boston, Massachusetts, founded in 1857, where a 'carved figure of Mr. Pickwick... greets all ye merry members who enter the door'; the Pickwick Club of Rochester, England, which shares with our club an enthusiasm for levying fines: 'On all occasions when the Club shall be forgathered on Club business all members will be addressed by their character names. Failure to do this will result in the imposition of a fine... all members and guests are required to say, "Cheers" before imbibing or risk the levy of a fine'; the Pickwick Club of Swansea; the Pickwick Club of Lafayette, Indiana, reserved for women only; and the Pickwick Club of Corsham, near the village of Pickwick, reserved for nudists only).
But the chief interest of our minutes is what they tell us of the original readership of The Pickwick Papers, or at least one significant section of that readership. Their political sympathies were radical. For example, one motion that came up for discussion was "Whether the Chartists are not absurd in their demands"; to which the Club moved that it was "not absurd". Early in November 1839 John Frost, the former Mayor of Monmouth, led a Chartist march on Newport, during which some two dozen people died. On 12 January 1840, the Pickwick Club debated the motion of "Were the Jury in Frost's Case justified in finding a verdict of Guilty on his Indictments", to which they returned the answer: "Certainly not". On 16 January 1840, for the last such time in England, Frost was sentenced to be hanged, drawn and quartered. Three days later the Club debated "Whether the sentence passed on Frost is not against common feelings of humanity", to which the answer returned was that "it is". When asked "To consider what remedy will be efficient to ameliorate the Condition of the People", the Club answered: "universal suffrage". Similarly, when asked "Whether Hanging tends to decrease the Crimes for which it intended", they replied "It does not".
Nor do they seem to have been over enamoured of the young Victoria, who succeeded to the throne on 20 June 1837, during the run of Pickwick and the early years of the Club. At the same meeting that condemned Frost's sentence, a motion was put to "Thank the Duchess of Kent [Victoria's mother] for the amiable manner she has educated the Queen", which received the response: "Ought not to be thanked say all the Members". Elsewhere the motion was carried that royalty was "the very worst of humbug". While the proposal that "the Members of the Club ought to sing the National Anthem on their extraordinary meetings" received the answer, recorded by the minutes in capital letters, "NO".
Not surprisingly, the members show a taste for picaresque fiction. On 27 May 1838, they are asked: "Is not the Pickwick in America, a very good work and worth a penny a number"; and on another occasion whether they preferred Fenimore Cooper to Fielding (Fielding was preferred), or whether Cooper's fellow American Robert M. Bird was "as good a novelist as Smollet" (Smollet won). Occasionally they exhibit a taste for self-improvement, as when, on 11 December 1841, it is stated that "Mr Lowton will deliver a lecture upon the principles of the steam Engine". In keeping with this progressive spirit, the Club decides that "Asphalt pavement" is "the superior to the Yorkshire flagstone". Although when asked "Whether Railroads are a more convenient way of Travelling than Stage Coaches", they opt for stage coaches.
But, it must be confessed, they were generally less high-minded, and indeed more typical of the general tenor of these minutes are subjects such as "Why should there not be a New set of Gobbing Pots", which is marked "Mr Wardle to present one", or "Whether its better to have a pocket Handkerchief on a cold day or use your fingers". Indeed, the adjective 'Victorian' is not the first that springs to mind in characterizing members of our Club; the minutes of which, on 12 December 1841, all but splutter out with the doggerel: "damn and bugger the pickwick Club/ Dam and bugger the prick, wick Club".
(Further research may well uncover more information about the James Plater who has put his name to this volume. On the page facing this final doggerel, he is recorded as attending a meeting of the Club on 11 December 1841, in propria persona, accompanied by his wife and daughter. He may possibly be the silversmith who is recorded as apprenticed to Thomas Wilkes Barker in 1835-36 and living at 15 Compton Street, Clerkenwell; another James Plater, presumably a father or uncle, having also been apprenticed to Barker in 1806 and practising in 1831: see Sarah Tanner's Silversmith Research page, the online records of the livery companies, and the London Gazette for 1831. The "Baronial Arms" loosely inserted into the volume, facetious though they are, are drawn with some of the skill that one would expect from a silversmith.)
WITH its cast of eccentrically colourful characters engaged in a series of hapless adventures, Charles Dickens’s first novel, The Pickwick Papers, was a literary sensation.
Its success was such that, following its publication in 1837, Pickwick Clubs were founded in honour of the fictional society set up by the novel’s central character, Samuel Pickwick.
Now, nearly two centuries on, the papers of one such real-life Pickwick Club are to be auctioned after being discovered in a doctor’s library – and they reveal a politically radical streak running through Victorian London.
The bound volume of minutes from the club’s meetings are thought to be the only surviving documents of any of the dozens of Pickwick Clubs founded in reaction to the astonishing success of Dickens’s novel, originally published in monthly instalments between March 1836 and November 1837.
They were discovered among the rich literary collection of Hugh Selbourne, a French-born doctor who practised in Edinburgh and Manchester and died in 1973.
As with Dickens’s fictional Pickwick Club, the many real-life associations which the novel inspired were principally gatherings of like-minded men and women, and provided an excuse for them to socialise, drink and debate the matters of the day.
The papers being auctioned record the debates held by a Pickwick Club which met in the City of London and their 200 pages include a record of the club’s debate in January 1840 on the extension of voting rights to all working men. This was the key demand of the Chartist movement, which just three months earlier had staged a near-insurrection in Newport, led by John Frost, the former Mayor of Monmouth, during which some 22 people were killed by troops.
The Pickwick Club voted in favour of universal suffrage, and expressed its support for the Chartists and its opposition to the guilty verdicts brought against the participants in the Newport rising, including the sentence of death by hanging passed on Frost. When asked “Whether Hanging tends to decrease the Crimes for which it intended”, the members replied “It does not”.
In a similarly bold move the club’s members were critical of the young Victoria, who succeeded to the throne on June 20, 1837, during the early years of the club. A motion put to “Thank the Duchess of Kent [Victoria’s mother] for the amiable manner she has educated the Queen” received the response that she “Ought not to be thanked say all the Members”.
Elsewhere a motion was carried that royalty was “the very worst of humbug” and, to add republican insult to injury, the proposal that “the Members of the Club ought to sing the National Anthem on their extraordinary meetings” received the unambiguous answer “NO”, recorded in capital letters.
The Pickwick Club’s radicalism is likely to have chimed with Dickens’s own views. His sympathies for the poor were evident in novels such as Oliver Twist, Hard
Times and Our Mutual Friend, and he was trenchant in his mockery of the “humbug” and hypocrisy of Britain’s ruling elite.
There were also rather more prosaic matters discussed, such as “Why should there not be a New set of Gobbing Pots”, or “Whether it’s better to have a pocket Handkerchief on a cold day or use your fingers”, and “Whether it is not a bad spec. for this New Gin Shop to open in Dean St” (It was decided “It is not”).
Pickwick Club members were allocated the name of a character from the book for club meetings such as that of Mr Pickwick’s cockney servant and shrewd companion Sam Weller – a cult hero among Victorian readers.
Little is known about the Pickwick Club’s real-life members, although, given its location, they are likely to have included clerks, solicitors, barristers and members of London’s craft trades.
Two whose names are recorded, along with lines of doggerel verse, are James Plater, a silversmith living in Clerkenwell, and his father or uncle, also James and also a silversmith.