Read Death and Mr. Pickwick Online
Authors: Stephen Jarvis
Death and Mr. Pickwick (133 page)
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CONTENTS
1797. It was a cold spring Somerset day â¦
Mr Inbelicate drew my attention â¦
I offer no opinion on what turned Gillray's mind.
Mr Inbelicate once said to me â¦
Mr Inbelicate had collected numerous curious items â¦
Robert Seymour looked towards the empty pews â¦
I remember Mr Inbelicate taking hold of that papier-m
â
ch
é
snuffbox â¦
In the back room of the shop â¦
There is a red and black ringbinder in Mr Inbelicate's library â¦
17 August 1801. Joseph Grimaldi was not always the clown on stage.
After the clown at Bartholomew Fair â¦
âI love the word “higgledy-piggledy”,' said Mr Inbelicate.
I remember one day a messenger boy arrived at Canonbury.
âLet us leave Canonbury, Scripty, as Wonk and Seymour themselves did.'
A boy with patched breeches â¦
I have noted already the sensation of
Dr Syntax
â¦
When St Martin's struck twelve â¦
The thrice-chiming of Pickwick, Pickwick and Pickwick â¦
It was a great annoyance to Mr Inbelicate â¦
âYou do know, Robert,' said Holmes â¦
It was a hot June evening in 1710 â¦
âSchmid,' said Edward Holmes â¦
The withered tree of the Viennese
Freischütz
â¦
âHow serious he was is a matter of considerationâ¦'
On a chair in the corner of the room â¦
âThe ending of Robert Seymour's desire for high artâ¦'
The gymnasium at Pentonville â¦
John Liston was born for comic roles.
âShortshanks, it is true, does suggest Cruikshankâ¦'
âI think,' said Jane, âthere will come a timeâ¦'
Heath had just shown Thomas McLean his picture â¦
âYour teeth aren't crooked, and they're tolerably whiteâ¦'
Mr Inbelicate's enthusiasm was unbounded â¦
âI want to go further,' said Seymour.
âHave you seen the second movie in the
Alien
franchise?'
âI confess I have never seen the likes of such pictures beforeâ¦'
In a desk drawer in Moses Pickwick's office â¦
âI am going to mention two thingsâ¦'
William Heath sat in the Three Tuns public house â¦
Every week throughout 1830 Seymour took work â¦
âMcLean may have called it his sheetâ¦'
âThat looks like a burn to me,' said the new matron â¦
The fast and varied pencil of Robert Seymour â¦
One bright morning, when Seymour made his way to the Figaro
office
â¦
âDo you remember the first meal we had together, Scripty?'
Before seeing Egan, Seymour went for a drink â¦
âStrange word, “Cockney”,' said Mr. Inbelicate.
Over ten years had passed since the publication of
Life in London
.
âIntriguing phenomenon, the Daffy Clubâ¦'
Where the London to Salisbury road crosses â¦
âThe earliest written record of the Houghton Angling Club' â¦
One rainy day, Richard Penn and Edward Barnard trudged â¦
âIt was the case,' said Mr Inbelicate.
An old officer of the 44th Regiment â¦
âThat story is not
completely
impossible,' I told Mr Inbelicate.
May 1833. In the bay-windowed upper room of the Grosvenor â¦
There was a quill, poised to write.
âWhere did he get the money to start it?'
One day in the office, Mr Shury stood â¦
âThe question of Nimrod's employmentâ¦'
Robert Surtees's brother Anthony has travelled extensively â¦
âI am amused by the Jorrocks pieces in the
New
,' said Seymour.
âIt has been so long since we mentioned that boy in Chathamâ¦'
As the first of his fishing pictures for Penn â¦
âBut,' said Mr Inbelicate â¦
âSo we have the origin of his pattern of speechâ¦'
There was an odour of vinegar â¦
In the 1660s, in the alley where the modern tavern now stands â¦
The admirer of Maria had become a newspaper reporter.
âSo we have him travelling all over the country by coachâ¦'
A pandemonium of handbells on the street â¦
âMr Seymour, you are a
mole
in the politicians' gardensâ¦'
âFour drawings,' said Mr Inbelicate.
Seymour was at a chest of drawers â¦
âThe caricature,' said Mr Inbelicate, âwas of a bloated bishop on a sickbed.'
Though it was not the grandest estate in all Surrey â¦
Among the poets Seymour ridiculed â¦
âYou will remember that Beckett called our artistâ¦'
No publisher's office in London had a look â¦
Leading up one wall of this house's staircase â¦
I turn back through the pages I have already written â¦
âSuppose you were planning a new publication, Scriptyâ¦'
There was more than one coach a day to Chatham and Rochester â¦
âYou are assuming quite an “if”,' I said.
Goswell Street, at night, 12 May 1827.
âThe first notebook in the world was probablyâ¦'
âIt is
inconceivable
that a man like Melbourneâ¦'
âThe life and literary career of Charles Whiteheadâ¦'
Two good friends were out walking under the elms â¦
Extract from an essay by Mr Inbelicate â¦
âIf we make it more political than most annualsâ¦'
âTake the case of Pierce Egan,' said Mr Inbelicate.
âWhy do publishers not take full advantageâ¦'
âOr take the case of Sir Walter Scottâ¦'
âYou will find me sympathetic,' said Chapman.
One morning, as I was buttoning my shirt â¦
He sat among the audience in a sweaty backstreet theatre.
âIt was a work published a few years after he was bornâ¦'
He undid the knot, and turned to the title page â¦
âThe direct inspiration for Combe and Rowlandsonâ¦'
She whispered, âI think you'll find the bonesâ¦'
âBut now, let us announce that “Chatham Charlie” is no moreâ¦'
The cool cloudiness of the February morning â¦
âTo take the work,' said Mr Inbelicate â¦
âWe have not come to a final decision on that,' said Hall.
âNow I want to ask you a very important question, Scriptyâ¦'
Late in the afternoon, Seymour returned to Islington â¦
The earlier history of Ely Stott â¦
He walked over the bridge at Putney.
It is appropriate to mention here a foible of Mr Inbelicate's.
Charles Whitehead had asked Seymour to produce two pictures â¦
It was a cold, clear Thursday afternoon, 18 February 1836 â¦
There is a floorlit alcove of Mr Inbelicate's house â¦
Edward Chapman looked at the proof â¦
âThe first number cannot be said to have been greetedâ¦'
âDid it ever strike you,' said the dismal man â¦
âA letter is usually read, for the first time, as a wholeâ¦'
When Seymour returned from a meeting with McLean â¦
âHave you ever been informed of a suicide, Scripty?'
Edward Chapman pushed an inch-high pile â¦
Boz had already, for a play, invented a one-eyed boots â¦
âWithin two years,' said Mr Inbelicate â¦
The sight of Mr SJT Bompas, serjeant-at-law â¦
âShe died in the middle of the afternoonâ¦'
The public came to the bookshops with their shillings â¦
âWhat Forster suggested can only be guessed atâ¦'
Thousands of pounds of sonorous bronze â¦
âIt is my belief,' said Mr Inbelicate â¦
During the rebuilding at Numbers 1 and 2 Lombard Street â¦
When Thomas Kelly published his novels in numbers â¦
After we had discussed the possible significance of the tale of the baron â¦
The Account of Weld Taylor, Lithographer
â¦
âIf it was a drawing of the shepherdâ¦'
On a visit to Doughty Street, John Forster â¦
âSo Seymour's scheme was presentedâ¦'
In September 1847, when Dickens came to compose a preface â¦
âWhat an intriguing document the 1847 preface isâ¦'
He walked past the print shops near Westminster Hall â¦
âI don't believe a word about his vision being disruptedâ¦'
As Dickens continued to work upon the preface â¦
I was about to ask Mr Inbelicate whether he had investigated the records â¦
The Life of Robert Seymour, Son of Robert Seymour
â¦
Mr Inbelicate interrupted when he saw I had reached this point â¦
I wondered whether Dickens could have instructed my father â¦
âMarch 1836 was very wet across England and Walesâ¦'
I could see one way only of resolving the paradox â¦
Mr Inbelicate, who had been following my progress â¦
Lime trees and flourishing shrubs stood â¦
âRobert Booth Rawes's physical resemblance to Mr Pickwickâ¦'
In the Cambridge of those days â¦
âSo,' I said. âSeymour's son.'
In the place of keys, cabinets, cleanliness and commands â¦
âWe must not forget that there was another manâ¦'
âIt may have occurred to Charles Whiteheadâ¦'
Give this country time, and literary men will be in demand â¦
One morning, Charles Whitehead did not come down to breakfast.
November 1867
. As the round-shouldered old fellow â¦
âDickens had good reason to be anxious,' said Mr Inbelicate.
Once I knew that there was a blatant contradiction â¦
âIt is true, Scripty, that there is no absolute necessityâ¦'
There was something I
could
prove.
âWe can actually dig a little deeperâ¦'
As I continue turning out the trunk â¦
He could hold his breath no more â¦
The clock had stood for many years in the Universal Coach Office â¦
1873
. âYou will be surprised, Harrison,' said Buss â¦
âBut what of Pickwick's third illustrator?'
It was a rainy April evening â¦
As Mr Inbelicate's health declined â¦
I met the man, whom I shall call Mr N, twice.
I closed the manuscript, and handed it back to Mr Inbelicate.
My long life has been dominated by one author â¦
âEven fifty years is not the longest Pickwickian questâ¦'
When I had finished reading Mr Inbelicate's narrative â¦
At the end of the parade of shops â¦
It is the lie of novels to pretend that life has a plot.
Â
Farrar, Straus and Giroux
18 West 18th Street, New York 10011
Copyright © 2015 by Wordaholic Ltd.
All rights reserved
Originally published in 2015 by Jonathan Cape, Great Britain
Published in the United States by Farrar, Straus and Giroux
First American edition, 2015
Grateful acknowledgment is made for permission to reprint lines from “Not Dark Yet”
by Bob Dylan, copyright © 1997 by Special Rider Music.
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Jarvis, Stephen, 1958â
    Death and Mr. Pickwick: a novel / Stephen Jarvis. â First American edition.
       pages    cm
    ISBN 978-0-374-13966-7 (hardback) â ISBN 978-0-374-71264-8 (e-book)
