Such things as the oxbridge scenes and the journalism scenes of Pendennis-both among the most effective and popular, perhaps the most effective and popular, parts of the book-were almost, if not entirely, new.
"The English Novel"
George Saintsbury
Pendennis, when he comes home the first time from oxbridge, brings with him a large box of cigars of strange brand, which he smokes "not only about the stables and greenhouses, where they were good" for his mother's plants, and which were obviously places to which a man who wished to smoke should betake himself, but in his own study, which rather shocks his mother.
"The Social History of Smoking"
G. L. Apperson
Whether we are at the height of romantic passion with Esmond's devotion to Beatrix, and his transactions with the duke and the prince over diamonds and title deeds; whether the note is that of the simplest human pathos, as in Colonel Newcome's death-bed; whether we are indulged with society at Baymouth and oxbridge; whether we take part in Marlborough's campaigns or assist at the Back Kitchen-we are in the House of Life, a mansion not too frequently opened to us by the writers of prose fiction.
"A History of Nineteenth Century Literature (1780-1895)"
George Saintsbury