CHAPTER VII

THE "TOWN ARMS," EATANSWILL, AND THE INN OF "THE BAGMAN'S STORY"



Following the Pickwickians in the sequence of their peregrinations,
we become confronted with the problem, "which was the prototype of
Eatanswill?" Having weighed the evidence of each of the other
claimants for the honour, we favour that of Sudbury in Suffolk, for
which so good a case has been presented. That being so, the "Rose
and Crown" undoubtedly would be the original of the "Town Arms," the
headquarters of the Blues and the inn at which Mr. Pickwick and his
friends alighted on their arrival in the town.

First let us briefly state the case for Sudbury.

In the opening paragraph of Chapter XIII of the book, Dickens writes:

"We will frankly acknowledge, that up to the period of our being
first immersed in the voluminous papers of the Pickwick Club, we had
never heard of Eatanswill; we will with equal candour admit, that we
have in vain searched for proof of the actual existence of such a
place at the present day. . . . We are therefore led to believe,
that Mr. Pickwick, with that anxious desire to abstain from giving
offence to any, and with those delicate feelings for which all
who knew him well know he was so eminently remarkable, purposely
substituted a fictitious designation, for the real name of the place
in which his observations were made. We are confirmed in this