The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club (commonly known as The Pickwick Papers) is the first novel by Charles Dickens. The book became the first real publishing phenomenon, with bootleg copies, theatrical performances, Sam Weller joke books and other merchandise.
Written for publication as a serial, The Pickwick Papers is a sequence of loosely-related adventures. The novel's main character, Mr. Samuel Pickwick, Esquire, is a kind and wealthy old gentleman, and the founder and perpetual president of the Pickwick Club. To extend his researches into the quaint and curious phenomena of life, he suggests that he and three other "Pickwickians" (Mr. Nathaniel Winkle, Mr. Augustus Snodgrass, and Mr. Tracy Tupman) should make journeys to remote places fromLondon and report on their findings to the members of the club. Their travels throughout the English countryside provide the chief theme of the novel.
Its main literary value and appeal is formed by its numerous memorable characters. Each character in The Pickwick Papers, as in many other Dickens novels, is drawn comically, often with exaggerated personalities. Alfred Jingle provides an aura of comic villainy. His misadventures repeatedly land the Pickwickians in trouble. These include Jingle's elopement with the spinster, Aunt Rachael of Dingley Dell manor, misadventures with Dr. Slammer, and others.
About the Author :
Charles Dickens (1812-1870) was the most popular English novelist of the Victorian era. His many books include Oliver Twist, Great Expectations, and A Christmas Carol.
Simon Prebble has worked extensively on British and American television as both actor and narrator.
Review :
"A supreme masterpiece...The great example of everything that made Dickens great."
-- "G. K. Chesterton, English author and philosopher"
"Charles Dickens'...comic masterpiece [is] some 750 pages long. Fear not, gentle listener, you will never be bored...Dickens' masterwork is narrated by the incomparable Simon Prebble...He gives the novel the full-voiced treatment, with accents and fluttery females given to hysterics. Highly recommended."
-- "SoundCommentary.com (starred review)"
"No essay in fiction ever gave more incontestable assurance of genius...Never, perhaps, was satire so large-hearted and so entertaining."
-- "George Gissing, author of The Nether World"
"To wander into Pickwick is to wander into a room of wholly recognizable characters--a Dickens nursery, if you will, with the characters we would meet over the years appearing as embryonic personae, much as an artist sketches ideas for inclusion into a painting at a later date. Pickwick is defined not by its plot but by the extraordinary depth of its characters."
-- "Jasper Fforde, New York Times bestselling author"
