The Anchovy in Literature
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Charles Dickens: from The Pickwick Papers (1837), Bleak House (1853), The Uncommercial Traveller (1860) and Great Expectations (1860)
The reader will note the significant role played by "an anchovy sauce-cruet" in the scene from Great Expectations, and by those "delicate little rows of anchovies" in Bleak House.—Alice, the Anchovy Schoolmarm
The Pickwick Papers, Chapter 7:
"Come," replied the stranger — "stopping at Crown — Crown at Muggleton — met a party — flannel jackets — white trousers — anchovy sandwiches — devilled kidney — splendid fellows — glorious."
Bleak House, Chapter 19:
. . . All the furniture is shaken and dusted, the portraits of Mr. and Mrs. Snagsby are touched up with a wet cloth, the best tea-service is set forth, and there is excellent provision made of dainty new bread, crusty twists, cool fresh butter, thin slices of ham, tongue, and German sausage, and delicate little rows of anchovies nestling in parsley, not to mention new-laid eggs, to be brought up warm in a napkin, and hot buttered toast. . . .
The Uncommercial Traveller, Chapter 1:
I also hold that there is no more certain index to personal character than the condition of a set of casters is to the character of any hotel. Knowing, and having often tested this theory of mine, Bullfinch resigned himself to the worst, when, laying aside any remaining veil of disguise, I held up before him in succession the cloudy oil and furry vinegar, the clogged cayenne, the dirty salt, the obscene dregs of soy, and the anchovy sauce in a flannel waistcoat of decomposition. . . . The stopperless cruets on the spindle-shanked sideboard were in a miserably dejected state; the anchovy sauce having turned blue some years ago . . .
Great Expectations, Chapter 33:
. . . She drew her arm through mine, as if it must be done, and I requested a waiter who had been staring at the coach like a man who had never seen such a thing in his life, to show us a private sitting-room. Upon that, he pulled out a napkin, as if it were a magic clue without which he couldn't find the way up-stairs, and led us to the black hole of the establishment: fitted up with a diminishing mirror (quite a superfluous article considering the hole's proportions), an anchovy sauce-cruet, and somebody's pattens. On my objecting to this retreat, he took us into another room with a dinner-table for thirty, and in the grate a scorched leaf of a copy-book under a bushel of coal-dust. Having looked at this extinct conflagration and shaken his head, he took my order: which, proving to be merely "Some tea for the lady," sent him out of the room in a very low state of mind. . . .
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