Pickwickian Studies

Above the Great White Horse Inn, a stone horse trots placidly—though Dickens called it “rampacious.” Inside, the winding passages still seem ready to lose Mr. Pickwick all over again.

In late-nineteenth-century Ipswich, Percy Fitzgerald follows the traces that Dickens left in inns, streets and old-town memories. With affection and a sharp eye for comic detail, he weighs the real Great White Horse against the grand, gloomy maze of Pickwick’s adventures—and asks whether Ipswich also lies behind the fictional town of Eatanswill. The places have changed, and even the stone horse seems to invite correction; but Fitzgerald finds Dickens’s world lingering in familiar corners, as vivid as a visit from old friends. Which details belong to the town, and which did “Boz” make immortal?

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