Mrs Bardell (Pickwick Papers)

File:Mrs Bardell and friends.jpg (1867)]]

Mrs Martha Bardell is a widow, "the relict and sole executrix of a deceased custom–house officer ... a comely woman of bustling manners and agreeable appearance, with a natural genius for cooking, improved by study and long practice, into an exquisite talent."Dickens, Charles. [https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Pickwick_Papers/Chapter_12 The Pickwick Papers (1836)], Chapter XII - Descriptive of a very important Proceeding on the Part of Mr. Pickwick; no less an Epoch in his Life, than in this History With her young son she lives on Goswell Street in London where she provides lodgings for two lodgers including retired businessman Mr Pickwick, the latter taking two rooms at the front of the house.[https://www.charlesdickenspage.com/dickens-characters-a-b.html#bardell Dickens' Characters: Mrs Bardell], The Charles Dickens Page Mrs Bardell develops an affection for Pickwick and regards him as a potential marriage partner. Having no servant, the hardworking landlady Mrs. Bardell looked after the needs of her young son Tommy Bardell and those of her two lodgers single-handed. Her Counsel, Mr. Serjeant Buzfuz, later described the services she provided for Pickwick: "She waited on him, attended to his comforts, cooked his meals, looked out his linen for the washer-woman when it went abroad, darned, aired, and prepared it for his wear when it came home, and, in short, enjoyed his fullest trust and confidence."

File:Mrs Bardell Mr Pickwick Browne 1837.jpg (1837)]]

When Pickwick discusses with Mrs Bardell his idea of taking a servant (Sam Weller), expressing the view that three may eat as cheaply as two, she mistakes this for a marriage proposal and accepting his 'offer', much to his dismay, faints into his arms, possibly deliberately, as his three friends Winkle, Snodgrass and Tupman walk through the door and witness the scene.[http://www.victorianweb.org/art/illustration/phiz/pickwick/13.html 'Mrs. Bardell faints in Mr. Pickwick's arms'], Victorian Web

File:Pickwick Papers Trial 1837.jpg (1867)]]

When Pickwick refuses to marry her Mrs Bardell is persuaded by the unscrupulous lawyers Dodson and Fogg into bringing a breach of promise to marry suit against Pickwick in Bardell v. Pickwick, one of the most famous fictional legal cases in English literature. During the trial at the Guildhall Sittings in London before Mr. Justice Stareleigh, Mr. Serjeant Buzfuz prosecutes Pickwick and bullies the witnesses into giving incriminating testimony, leading to Pickwick being falsely convicted; he is imprisoned in the Fleet Prison for refusing to pay the fines awarded against him. Eventually Mrs. Bardell too is sent to the same prison by her attorneys for not paying their fees. Pickwick learns that the only way he can relieve her suffering is by paying her costs in the action against himself, thus at the same time releasing himself from the prison.Mark Wormald (2003) "Introduction" to The Pickwick Papers by Charles Dickens. London, Penguin.[http://www.enotes.com/topics/pickwick-papers/characters 'Pickwick Papers Characters' - enotes.com]

File:Mrs Bardell in the Fleet (1837).jpg – illustration by Hablot Knight Browne (August 1837)]]

Bardell Rock, south of Dickens Rocks in the Pitt Islands, northern Biscoe Islands, was named by the UK Antarctic Place-Names Committee in 1971 after Mrs Bardell.{{cite gnis | type = antarid | id = 952| name = Bardell Rock | accessdate = 2011-05-19}}

• Mrs Melville – Samuel Weller, or, The Pickwickians (1837)
• Lottie Venne – in the operetta Pickwick (1889)
• Jessie Bond – in a revival of the operetta Pickwick (1893–94)Moss, Simon. [http://www.c20th.com/GSarchiveother.htm Programme and description of 1894 production], Gilbert & Sullivan, a selling exhibition of memorabiliaJ. P. Wearing. [https://books.google.com/books?id=nF8pAgAAQBAJ&pg=PA193 The London Stage 1890-1899: A Calendar of Productions, Performers, and Personnel], Rowman & Littlefield (2014), Google Books, p. 193
• Laura Joyce Bell – Mr. Pickwick (1903) at the Herald Square Theatre and later the Grand Opera House."Laura Joyce Bell Dead", The New York Times, 30 May 1904, p. 5[https://gsarchive.net/AMT/pickwick/index.html Dramatis Personæ: Mr Pickwick (1903)], The Gilbert and Sullivan Archive
• Mary Brough – The Adventures of Mr. Pickwick (1921)
• Hermione Baddeley – The Pickwick Papers (1952)
• Edna Morris – Bardell V. Pickwick (1955)[https://web.archive.org/web/20190731221651/https://www.bfi.org.uk/films-tv-people/4ce2b7f5a59cc Bardell V. Pickwick (1955)], British Film Institute Database
• Jessie Evans – in the West End musical Pickwick (1963)
• Charlotte Rae – in the Broadway musical Pickwick (1965)
• Hattie Jacques – Pickwick (1969)
• Jo Kendall – The Pickwick Papers (1985)

{{Reflist}}

• Percy Fitzgerald. [https://www.gutenberg.org/files/25985/25985-h/25985-h.htm Full text of Bardell v. Pickwick], (1902) Project Gutenberg eBook

{{The Pickwick Papers}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Bardell, Mrs}}

Category:Charles Dickens characters

Category:The Pickwick Papers

Category:Fictional people from London

Category:Literary characters introduced in 1836

Category:Female characters in literature

Category:Comedy literature characters

Category:Inmates of Fleet Prison

Category:Female characters in film

Category:Female characters in television

Category:Fictional landlords