“The blessed darling comes of no family, my dear Handel, and never looked into the red book, and hasn’t a notion about her grandpapa. What a fortune for the son of my mother!”
– Charles Dickens
Great Expectations, Chapter 55. Herbert sarcastically compares Clara, the woman from a poor and humble background he plans to marry, to his mother. Mrs. Pocket is obsessed with social status and regularly reads the “red book,” a book about titles and members of the noble class.