Na het verschijnen van aflevering 4 van de Papers ontving de uitgever van Sketches
by Boz van Dickens het verzoek:
Let me beg your particular regard for the specimen of 'London Life1, Sam Weller....
also 'The Madman's MS'.
Over The Drunkard's Death ging een brief aan de drukker:
The little tale I am on, is a very good one (I think). I have taken great pains with it, as I
wished to finish the Volume with eclat. It will run to 28 slips, and I am on the 26th. but I
must keep the whole to read, in order that I may give it the finishing touch here and
there. It, and the Preface, shall be in Paternoster Row 7, in the morning, precisely. I
would willingly send it now, but as we should gain nothing by that, if I am punctual in
the morning, I prefer keeping it by me, an hour, or so, to look coolly over. You may
depend upon me. I should certainly wish to see the proof of this sketch. I will not
detain it one hour. The Messenger who brings it, may wait while I correct it. The other
proof I inclose.
Het bijzondere belang, dat Charles aan dit soort verhalen hechtte is met het
voorgaande wel duidelijk. 'The pull into sympathy for the unfortunate is the force that
animates Dickens's pull into narrative." schreef K.Chittick. En van de tweede Street
Sketch, Shops and their Tenants schreef zij: "Dickens moves unhesitatingly into pathos".
In februari 1837 verscheen Oliver Twist (dat dus de eerste aflevering, ch.1-2, werd
van de feuilleton Oliver Twist in Bentley's Miscellany). De sombere verhalen zetten zich
daarin voort alsmede in de hoofdstukken over de Fleet Prison in de lotgevallen van
Mr.Pickwick. Oliver Twist zit al heel wat gecompliceerder in elkaar, dan de schetsen en
Papers. Maar Oliver Twist heeft dit met The Pickwick Papers gemeen, dat het geboefte
evenals de gevangenen in de Fleet Prison mensen zijn. Individueel heel verschillend zijn
dan ook de twee Chancery-prisoners, en de reactie op hen van Mr.Pickwick en Sam
Weller. Volgen wij eerst Mr.Piockwick in chapter 42. Mr.Roker stuurt hem naar de
Chancery-prisoner om diens kamer te huren:
The matter was soon arranged, as the turnkey had foretold. The Chancery prisoner
had been there long enough to have lost friends, fortune, home, and happiness, and
to have acquired the right of having a room to himself. As he laboured, however,
under the incovenience of often wanting a morsel of bread, he eagerly listened to
Mr. Pickwick's proposal to rent the apartment, and readily covenanted and agreed
to yield him up the sole and undisturbed possession thereof, in consideration of the
weekly payment of twenty shillings; from which fund he furthermore contracted to
pay out any person or persons that might be chummed upon it.
As they struck the bargain, Mr. Pickwick sun/eyed him with a painful interest. He
was a tall, gaunt, cadaverous man, in an old great-coat and slippers: with sunken
cheeks, and a restless, eager eye. His lips were bloodless, and his bones sharp and
thin. God help him I the iron teeth of confinement and privation had been slowly
filing him down for twenty years.
"And where will you live meanwhile, sir?" said Mr. Pickwick, as he laid the amount
of the first week's rent, in advance, on the tottering table.
