Bardell v. Pickwick

Mr. Pickwick announces that he is hiring a manservant—and Mrs. Bardell promptly faints in his arms. His friends suspect a scandal; he cannot make “head or tail” of what has happened.

In Goswell Street, the comfortable bachelor lodger and his hardworking landlady have settled into an easy routine—until one startled morning turns a household misunderstanding into a case for the courts. Percy Fitzgerald revisits Charles Dickens’s comic Pickwick world, where Mrs. Bardell’s hopes, Mr. Pickwick’s gallant habits and the ambitions of her attorneys collide in a breach-of-promise suit. As the story moves from lodging-house confusion toward public trial, even a well-meaning gentleman can find himself trapped by what others believe he meant. How did one announcement about a servant become a lawsuit?

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