Dickens Studies as a University Examination Subject in the 1850s

Deduce from expressions used on one occasion Mr. Pickwick's maximum of speed. [b] Give, approximately, the height of Mr. Dubbley; and, accurately, the Christian names of Mr. Grummer, Mrs. Raddle, and the fat Boy; also the name of the Zephyr. [c] Deduce from a remark of Mr. Weller, junior, the price per mile of cabs at the period.2 Philip Collins has remarked that, when Calverley assembled his Paper, "Pickwick was, clearly, already a cult-book: and swopping arcane Dickens tags was something of an undergraduate fashion" (39). Among the literary productions which are reviewed in these columns works of imagination form a considerable item, and this of necessity, since they are become as much a part of the common stock of society and the common medley of conversation as the reports of the law courts [... and the notices] of [...] births, deaths, and marriages. [...] The reviewer thus brings to the fore a point made only implicitly by the pamphlet's authors: its mock promotion of popular fiction as a subject worthy of serious study is a comment (albeit one presented gently and good-naturedly) on the influence which the attitude of mind that may be loosely labelled as "utilitarianism," was, during the 1830s, starting to exert on education.8 We do not know that Dickens himself ever saw the Student's Guide, but, as an attentive reader of the Times, he is likely to have seen its review. The Manx Sun 20 January 1855, 4 contained the note "Amidst the distressing details of the horrors of war and disasters by sea and land with which the daily press is laden, it is delightful and refreshing-like [sic] an oasis in the desert to find [...] a recent talented publication, replete with erudition, wit and humour, the joint production of our young distinguished townsman, Mr. T. E. Brown, and a fellow Oxonian of Oriel College, entitled "The Student's Guide to the School of Literae Fictitiae.