Beautifully engraved certificate from the Great White Horse Inn issued in 1892. This historic document has an ornate border around it with a vignette of the company's name. This item is hand signed by the Company's President and Secretary and is over 113 years old. Charles Dickens wrote The Pickwick Papers which was a somewhat loose collection of the adventures of Samuel Pickwick and his friends, but was a huge success. Chapman and Hall printed only 1000 copies of the first monthly installment, at the end of serialization 40,000 copies were being printed. Pickwick had taken Britain, and later the world, by storm and had successfully launched Dickens to celebrity status. The Pickwick Papers, which Dickens sets in the late 1820's, has Samuel Pickwick and his fellow travelers tour southern England by coach. This manner of travel began to disappear in the next decade as the railway covered Britain. One of the Coaching Inns mentioned in the novel was the Great White Horse Inn in Ipswich.