The Pub in Literature: England's Altered State, by Steven Earnshaw

DICKENS

The Old Curiosity Shop (1841)

 
  'Where have you come from, if you don't know the Valiant Soldier as well as the church catechism? This is the Valiant Soldier, by James Groves, - Jem Groves - honest Jem Groves...'

 

Gray's Inn Coffee-House Also mentioned in David Copperfield.

The Jolly Sandboys Fictional.

The Valiant Soldier Fictional.

The Wilderness Quilp's favourite haunt, where he drinks Scheidam, a particularly fiery version of gin.

Frustrated in his attempt to find out more of the whereabouts of Nell and grandfather, Quilp suggests he and Swiveller go to 'a house by the waterside where they have some of the noblest Schiedam' [Schiedam = gin].

The landlord knows me. There's a little summer-house overlooking the river, where we might take a glass of this delicious liqour with a whiff of the best tobacco - it's in this case, and of the rarest quality, to my certain knowledge - and be perfectly snug and happy, could we possibly contrive it; or is there any very particular engagement that peremptorily takes you another way, Mr Swiveller, eh?'

...

The summer-house of which Mr Quilp had spoken was a rugged wooden box, rotten and bare to see, which overhung the river's mud, and threatened to slide down into it. The tavern to which it belonged was a crazy building, sapped and undermined by the rats, and only upheld by great bars of wood which were reared against its walls, and had propped it up so long that even they were decaying and yielding with their load, and of a windy night might be heard to creak and crack as if the whole fabric were about to come toppling down. The house stood - if anything so old and feeble could be said to stand - on a piece of waste ground, blighted with the unwholesome smoke of factory chimneys, and echoing the clank of iron wheels and rush of troubled water. Its internal accommodations amply fulfilled the promise of the outside. The rooms were low and damp, the clammy walls were pierced with chinks and holes, the rotten floors had sunk from their level, the very beams started from their places and warned the timid stranger from their neighbourhood.