The New York Public Library, Berg Collection of
English and American Literature
Mrs. Martha Bardell, Mr. Pickwick's accommodating landlady, and her unpleasant son, Master Tommy, from Sam Weller's Scrap Sheet, Containing All the Pickwick Portraits (ca. 1837).
When Mr. Pickwick consults his landlady about his intention of keeping a manservant,
Mrs. Bardell (a widow) mistakenly construes that he is about to propose to her, and straightaway
faints into his arms, "a lovely burden." This unfortunate misunderstanding results in a suit for
breach of promise, Bardell vs. Pickwick, the sublime legal farce recounted in chapter 34 of The
Pickwick Papers. For his "revolting heartlessness" and "systematic villainy," the angelic and
completely innocent Mr. Pickwick is ordered to pay damages of seven hundred and fifty pounds!