The Pickwick Papers Charles Dickens 1836-1837

Originally written as a series of stories published weekly, The Pickwick Papers is Charles Dicken’s first publication and tells the exploits of a group of men as they travel by coach around England. It has a connection to Bath.

Pickwick may have been inspired by Eleazar Pickwick, who oversaw the Bristol-Bath coaching route and set up the famous White Hart Inn, opposite the Pump Room.

Chapter 35 “In Which Mr Pickwick Thinks He Had Better Go To Bath, And Does So Accordingly”.

Mr Pickwick and his party arrive in Bath, and are met the next morning by the Master of Ceremonies Angelo Cyrus Bantam. Bantam expresses shock that the party have never tried the waters of “Ba-ath”. He then recounts with enthusiasm “a gentleman…lost the use of his limbs…could not be moved...and who had the waters from the King’s Bath bottled at 103 degrees...he bathed, sneezed and the same day recovered”. During the evening’s ball at the Assembly Rooms, Dickens describes the layout of the rooms and the different sections of polite society to be found there. The elder ladies and gentlemen, along with match-making mothers hovered by the card tables in the Tea Room; “knots of silly young men” chatted by the doors and in the corners of all rooms; the unmarried ladies and spinsters sat in rows of chairs in the ballroom, watching the other couples dance.

Chapter 36 “The Chief Features of Which Will Be Found To Be An Authentic Version Of The Legend Of Prince Bladud, And A Most Extraordinary Calamity Befell Mr. Winkle”. Having decided to stay in Bath for 2 months, Mr Pickwick and his party take up rooms in the Royal Crescent, and Mr Pickwick becomes an enthusiastic drinker of Bath’s famous waters “and after every fresh quart of a pint he declared, in most solemn and emphatic terms, that he had never felt better” even though his friends didn’t think anything had been the matter with him to start with.

The process of going to the Pump Room is described in detail: “The Great Pump Room is a spacious saloon, ornamented with Corinthian pillars, and a music-gallery, and a Tompion clock, and a statue of Nash, and a golden inscription, to which all the water-drinkers should attend…There is a large bar with a marble vase, out of which the pumper gets the water; and there are a number of yellow-looking tumblers, out of which the company get it; and it is a most edifying and satisfactory sight to behold the perseverance and gravity with which they swallow it. There are baths near at hand, in which a part of the company wash themselves…There is another pump room, into which infirm ladies and gentlemen are wheeled, in such an astonishing variety of chairs and chaises… There is an immensity of promenading, on crutches and off, with sticks and without, and a great deal of conversation, and liveliness, and pleasantry.”

The baths mentioned could be any number of public baths operating in Bath at this time – Cross, Queen’s, Tepid, Hot.

Mr Pickwick also enjoys the long walks that were usually prescribed to the regular water-drinkers, and the use of bath chairs is also mentioned as an acceptable way to get around Bath.

Chapter 37 sees Mr Pickwick’s valet Sam Weller explore Bath and make comments about the waters “I thought they were partickulary unpleasant…I thought they’d a wery strong flavour o’ warm flat irons”.

Later in the evening Mr Pickwick reads two different tales of King Bladud. The first is the tale traditionally told in Bath; that Bladud contracted an illness and was sent to be a swineherd, and cures himself in the waters of the Sacred Spring (the twist Dickens adds is that the waters were too hot and Bladud dies shortly after).

The second version tells how, spurned by his family and the love of his life, Bladud drowns himself in the Sacred Spring and its hot waters are in fact his tears. The water are drunk by people hoping to obtain romantic partners so they may not encounter the same fate at Bladud.