hroughout his writings in 1836, as Deborah A. Thomas notes, Dickens "seems to have been fascinated with the idea of using short stories to examine the mentally abnormal" (21). In an episodic novel filled with rollicking farce and humorous characters Dickens uses the oral tales of incidental characters to introduce the kind of material commonly found in Gothic novels: murder, mayhem, sadistic violence, wicked fathers, and implacable avengers. However, such realistic backdrops as the Marshalsea Prison here (all too familiar to Dickens from the days of his own father's incarceration there) point to such contemporary and realistic materials as police procedurals, the Newgate novel, and sensational stories crime-and-detection. The stark illustration suggests Dickens's chief inspiration for the tale of depravity and vengeance: the contemporary melodrama.
To break up the picaresque narrative and provide tonal variety, Dickens deploys nine interpolated oral tales in The Pickwick Papers. The picaresque writers whom Dickens had read and was emulating — Cervantes, Tobas Smollett, Henry Fielding, and Laurence Sterne — had provided him with precedent. However, these earlier writers of the picaresque had not had to concern themselves with how their illustrators would interpret this interpolated material, or how to integrate the resulting illustrations into the instalment. In fact, Dickens's original illustrators, acting under his suggestion, provided serial plates for only three of these stories. Although there are four major programs of illustration by nineteenth-century artists, the interpolated tales in the episodic novel have only been infrequently illustrated. The stories are as follows:
- "The Stroller's Tale" (May 1836)
- "The Convict's Return" — originally June 1836
- "A Madman's Manuscript" — originally July 1836
- "The Bagman's Story" and and the extra illustration (August 1836)
- "The Parish Clerk: A Tale of True Love" (September 1836)
- "The Old Man's Tale about the Queer Client" (November 1836)
- "The Story of the Goblins who stole a Sexton" and the extra illustration (January 1837)
- "The True Legend of Prince Bladud" — originally April 1837
- "The Story of the Bagman's Uncle" and the extra illustration (September 1837), aka "The Ghost of a Mail"
Related Materials: Dickens's Short Fiction, 1833-68
- The Nine Interpolated Tales in Pickwick
- A Comprehensive List of Dickens's Short Fiction, 1833-1868
- An Overview of Dickens's Short Fiction, 1833-1868
- A Critical Analysis of Dickens's Short Fiction, 1833-68
- Dickens' Aesthetic of the Short Story
- The Victorian Short Story: A Brief History
Bibliography
Cohen, Jane Rabb. Charles Dickens and His Original Illustrators. Columbus: Ohio State U. P., 1980.
Davis, Paul. Charles Dickens A to Z: The Essential Reference to His Life and Work. New York: Facts On File, 1998.
Dickens, Charles. The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club. Illustrated by Robert Seymour, Robert Buss, and Phiz. London: Chapman and Hall, November 1837. With 32 additional illustrations by Thomas Onwhyn (London: E. Grattan, April-November 1837).
_____. Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club. Illustrated by Thomas Nast. The Household Edition. 16 vols. New York: Harper and Brothers, 1873. Vol. 4.
_____. Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club. Illustrated by Hablot Knight Browne ('Phiz'). The Household Edition. 22 vols. London: Chapman and Hall, 1874. Vol. 6.
_____. Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club. Illustrated by Harry Furniss. The Charles Dickens Library Edition. 18 vols. London: Educational Book, 1910. Vol. 2.
Hammerton, J. A. The Dickens Picture-Book. London: Educational Book Co., 1910.
Johnannsen, Albert. "The Posthumous Papers of The Pickwick Club." Phiz Illustrations from the Novels of Charles Dickens. Chicago: University of Chicago Press; Toronto: The University of Toronto Press, 1956. Pp. 1-74.
Patten, Robert L. "The Art of Pickwick's Interpolated Tales." English Literary History 34 (1967): 349-66.
Steig, Michael. Chapter 2. "The Beginnings of 'Phiz': Pickwick, Nickleby, and the Emergence from Caricature." Dickens and Phiz. Bloomington & London: Indiana U. P., 1978. Pp. 24-50.
Thomas, Deborah A.. Dickens and the Short Story. Philadelphia: Philadelphia U. P., 1982.
Created 5 November 2019
Last updated 22 May 2025