“BARDELL V. PICKWICK”: THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THE LEGAL SYSTEM IN CHARLES DICKENS’ THE PICKWICK PAPERS

Abstract

This paper is an introduction to the importance of the legal system in Dickens’ writing. Dickens’ early beginnings as a clerk at a law office and as a journalist reporting on civil law cases are very much intertwined with the everyday life in the courts of Victorian England. This makes it no surprise that the legal system is present in almost any novel by Dickens. In this paper I aim to establish a connection between the legal system and Dickens’ character and world-building. This will be done based on Dickens’ first novel The Pickwick Papers.