The History of Pendennis

Our characters are all a month older than they were when the last-described adventures and conversations occurred, and a great number of the personages of our story have chanced...

Early in the Regency of George the Magnificent, there lived in a small town in the west of England, called Clavering, a gentleman whose name was Pendennis. There were those aliv...

The inmates of Fairoaks were drowsily pursuing this humdrum existence, while the great house upon the hill, on the other side of the River Brawl, was shaking off the slumber in...

A short time after the piece of good fortune which befell Colonel Altamont at Epsom, that gentleman put into execution his projected foreign tour, and the chronicler of the poli...

Let us be allowed to pass over a few months of the history of Mr. Arthur Pendennis’s lifetime, during the which, many events may have occurred which were more interesting and ex...

The exertions of that last night at Gaunt House had proved almost too much for Major Pendennis; and as soon as he could move his weary old body with safety, he transported himse...

Every day, after the entertainment at Grosvenor Place and Greenwich, of which we have seen Major Pendennis partake, the worthy gentleman’s friendship and cordiality for the Clav...

Our friend Pen was not sorry when his Mentor took leave of the young gentleman on the second day after the arrival of the pair in Oxbridge, and we may be sure that the Major on...

Our good-natured Begum was at first so much enraged at this last instance of her husband’s duplicity and folly, that she refused to give Sir Francis Clavering any aid in order t...

Civil war was raging, high words passing, people pushing and squeezing together in an unseemly manner, round a window in the corner of the ballroom, close by the door through wh...

The noble Henry Foker, of whom we have lost sight for a few pages, has been in the meanwhile occupied, as we might suppose a man of his constancy would be, in the pursuit and in...

Without slackening her pace, Rebecca the mare galloped on to Baymouth, where Pen put her up at the inn stables, and ran straightway to Mr. Foker’s lodgings, which he knew from t...

The difference between the girls did not last long. Laura was always too eager to forgive and be forgiven, and as for Miss Blanche, her hostilities, never very long or durable,...

The information regarding the affairs of the Clavering family, which Major Pendennis had acquired through Strong, and by his own personal interference as the friend of the house...

Whilst Pen, in his own county, was thus carrying on his selfish plans and parliamentary schemes, news came to him that Lady Rockminster had arrived at Baymouth, and had brought...

Arthur was about sixteen years old, we have said, when he began to reign; in person (for I see that the artist who is to illustrate this book, and who makes sad work of the like...

Our duty now is to record a fact concerning Pendennis, which, however shameful and disgraceful, when told regarding the chief personage and godfather of a novel, must, neverthel...

It chanced at that great English festival, at which all London takes a holiday upon Epsom Downs, that a great number of the personages to whom we have been introduced in the cou...

Since that fatal but delightful night in Grosvenor Place, Mr. Harry Foker’s heart had been in such a state of agitation as you would hardly have thought so great a philosopher c...

Worthy Major Pendennis fulfilled his promise to Warrington so far as to satisfy his own conscience, and in so far to ease poor Helen with regard to her son, as to make her under...

Elated with the idea of seeing life, Pen went into a hundred queer London haunts. He liked to think he was consorting with all sorts of men—so he beheld coalheavers in their tap...

Pen, in the midst of his revels and enjoyments, humble as they were, and moderate in cost if not in kind, saw an awful sword hanging over him which must drop down before long an...

Some account has been given, in a former part of this story, how Mr. Pen, during his residence at home, after his defeat at Oxbridge, had occupied himself with various literary...

Doctor Portman’s letter was sent off to its destination in London, and the worthy clergyman endeavoured to soothe down Mrs. Pendennis into some state of composure until an answe...

Once upon a time, then, there was a young gentleman of Cambridge University who came to pass the long vacation at the village where young Helen Thistlewood was living with her m...

Pen’s conduct in this business of course was soon made public, and angered his friend Doctor Portman not a little: while it only amused Major Pendennis. As for the good Mrs. Pen...

Every house has its skeleton in it somewhere, and it may be a comfort to some unhappy folks to think that the luckier and most wealthy of their neighbours have their miseries an...

Could Helen have suspected that, with Pen’s returning strength, his unhappy partiality for little Fanny would also reawaken? Though she never spoke a word regarding that young p...

Some short time before Mr. Foker’s departure from Oxbridge, there had come up to Boniface a gentleman who had once, as it turned out, belonged to the other University of Camford...

Cicero and Euripides did not occupy Mr. Pen much for some time after this, and honest Mr. Smirke had a very easy time with his pupil. Rebecca was the animal who suffered most in...

Our reader must now please to quit the woods and sea-shore of the west, and the gossip of Clavering, and the humdrum life of poor little Fairoaks, and transport himself with Art...

Easy and frank-spoken as Pendennis commonly was with Warrington, how came it that Arthur did not inform the friend and depository of all his secrets, of the little circumstances...

Early in the forenoon of the day after the dinner in Grosvenor Place, at which Colonel Altamont had chosen to appear, the Colonel emerged from his chamber in the upper story at...

The Curate had gone on his daily errand to Fairoaks, and was upstairs in Pen’s study pretending to read with his pupil, in the early part of that very afternoon when Mrs. Portma...

Our poor widow (with the assistance of her faithful Martha of Fairoaks, who laughed and wondered at the German ways, and superintended the affairs of the simple household) had m...

Good Helen, ever since her son’s illness, had taken, as we have seen, entire possession of the young man, of his drawers and closets and all which they contained: whether shirts...

Any gentleman who has frequented the Wheel of Fortune public-house, where it may be remembered that Mr. James Morgan’s Club was held, and where Sir Francis Clavering had an inte...

Until the enemy had retired altogether from before the place, Major Pendennis was resolved to keep his garrison in Fairoaks. He did not appear to watch Pen’s behaviour or to put...

“Dear Blanche,” Arthur wrote, “you are always reading and dreaming pretty dramas, and exciting romances in real life: are you now prepared to enact a part of one? And not the pl...

Upon the appointed day our two friends made their appearance at Mr. Bungay’s door in Paternoster Row; not the public entrance through which booksellers’ boys issued with their s...

Our imprisoned Captain announced, in smart and emphatic language in his prospectus, that the time had come at last when it was necessary for the gentlemen of England to band tog...

As Fanny saw the two ladies and the anxious countenance of the elder, who regarded her with a look of inscrutable alarm and terror, the poor girl at once knew that Pen’s mother...

Every man, however brief or inglorious may have been his academical career, must remember with kindness and tenderness the old university comrades and days. The young man’s life...

Such a letter as the Major wrote of course, sent Doctor Portman to Fairoaks, and he went off with that alacrity which a good man shows when he has disagreeable news to communica...

Our readers have already heard Sir Francis Clavering’s candid opinion of the lady who had given him her fortune and restored him to his native country and home, and it must be o...

Meanwhile they were wondering at Fairoaks that the Major had not returned. Dr. Portman and his lady, on their way home to Clavering, stopped at Helen’s lodge-gate, with a brief...

On the day appointed, Major Pendennis, who had formed no better engagement, and Arthur who desired none, arrived together to dine with Sir Francis Clavering. The only tenants of...

Poor Foker found the dinner at Richmond to be the most dreary entertainment upon which ever mortal man wasted his guineas. “I wonder how the deuce I could ever have liked these...

Fashion has long deserted the green and pretty Temple Garden, which in Shakespeare makes York and Lancaster to pluck the innocent white and red roses which became the badges of...

Our acquaintance, Major Arthur Pendennis, arrived in due time at Fairoaks, after a dreary night passed in the mail-coach, where a stout fellow-passenger, swelling preternaturall...

Having returned to the George, Mr. Foker and his guest sate down to a handsome repast in the coffee-room; where Mr. Rincer brought in the first dish, and bowed as gravely as if...

Colleges, schools, and inns of courts still have some respect for antiquity, and maintain a great number of the customs and institutions of our ancestors, with which those perso...

Melancholy as the great house at Clavering Park had been in the days before his marriage, when its bankrupt proprietor was a refugee in foreign lands, it was not much more cheer...

The Major and Captain Costigan were old soldiers and accustomed to face the enemy, so we may presume that they retained their presence of mind perfectly; but the rest of the par...

Under some calico draperies in the shady embrasure of a window, Arthur Pendennis chose to assume a very gloomy and frowning countenance, and to watch Miss Bell dance her first q...

Better folks than Morgan, the valet, were not so well instructed as that gentleman, regarding the amount of Lady Clavering’s riches; and the legend in London, upon her Ladyship’...

Early next morning Pendennis’s shutters were opened by Morgan, who appeared as usual, with a face perfectly grave and respectful, bearing with him the old gentleman’s clothes, c...

Upon the platform at Tunbridge, Pen fumed and fretted until the arrival of the evening train to London, a full half-hour,—six hours it seemed to him; but even this immense inter...

Bred up, like a bailiff or a shabby attorney, about the purlieus of the Inns of Court, Shepherd’s Inn is always to be found in the close neighbourhood of Lincoln’s-Inn Fields, a...

Everybody who has the least knowledge of Heraldry and the Peerage must be aware that the noble family of which, as we know, Helen Pendennis was a member, bears for a crest, a ne...

Early mention has been made in this history of Mr. Garbetts, Principal Tragedian, a promising and athletic young actor, of jovial habits and irregular inclinations, between whom...

When, arrayed in his dressing-gown, Pen walked up, according to custom, to Warrington’s chambers next morning, to inform his friend of the issue of the last night’s interview wi...

The dinner was served when Arthur returned, and Lady Rockminster began to scold him for arriving late. But Laura, looking at her cousin, saw that his face was so pale and scared...

Let those who have a real and heartfelt relish for London society and the privilege of an entree into its most select circles, admit that Major Pendennis was a man of no ordinar...

Almost a year, as the reader will perceive, has passed since an event described a few pages back. Arthur’s black coat is about to be exchanged for a blue one. His person has und...

Within a short period of the events above narrated, Mr. Manager Bingley was performing his famous character of ‘Rolla,’ in ‘Pizarro,’ to a house so exceedingly thin, that it wou...

The train carried Arthur only too quickly to Tunbridge, though he had time to review all the circumstances of his life as he made the brief journey; and to acknowledge to what s...

Early in this history, we have had occasion to speak of the little town of Clavering, near which Pen’s paternal home of Fairoaks stood, and of some of the people who inhabite th...

Our friend had arrived in London on that day only, though but for a brief visit; and having left some fellow-travellers at an hotel to which he had convoyed them from the West,...

Our friend Pen said “How d’ye do, Mr. Bows,” in a loud cheery voice on perceiving that gentleman, and saluted him in a dashing off-hand manner, yet you could have seen a blush u...

Captain Shandon, urged on by his wife, who seldom meddled in business matters, had stipulated that John Finucane, Esquire, of the Upper Temple, should be appointed sub-editor of...

Costigan never roused Pen from his slumbers; there was no hostile message from Mr. Huxter to disturb him; and when Pen woke, it was with a brisker and more lively feeling than o...

Considerable success at first attended the new journal. It was generally stated, that an influential political party supported the paper; and great names were cited amongst the...

Sauntering slowly homewards, Major Pendennis reached the George presently, and found Mr. Morgan, his faithful valet, awaiting him at the door of the George Inn, who stopped his...

On a picturesque common in the neighbourhood of Tunbridge Wells, Lady Clavering had found a pretty villa, whither she retired after her conjugal disputes at the end of that unlu...

One fine morning in the full London season, Major Arthur Pendennis came over from his lodgings, according to his custom, to breakfast at a certain Club in Pall Mall, of which he...

Thirteen months ago, when it seemed likely that this story had come to a close, a kind friend brought you to my bedside, whence, in all probability, I never should have risen bu...