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The Pickwick Papers
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The Pickwick Papers Paperback - 2012

by Charles Dickens


About this book

The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club (commonly known as The Pickwick Papers) is the first novel published by Charles Dickens. The Posthumous Papers Of The Pickwick Club catapulted the 24-year-old author to immediate fame. Readers were captivated by the adventures of the poet Snodgrass, the lover Tupman, the sportsman Winkle &, above all, by that quintessentially English Quixote, Mr. Pickwick, & his cockney Sancho Panza, Sam Weller. From the hallowed turf of Dingley Dell Cricket Club to the unholy fracas of the Eatanswill election, via the Fleet debtor’s prison, characters & incidents sprang to life from Dickens’s pen, to form an enduringly popular work of ebullient humor & literary invention

The novel was published in 19 issues over 20 months by Chapman and Hall, London in 1836. 

After the publication the widow of illustrator Robert Seymour claimed that the idea for the novel was originally her husband's; however, in his preface to the 1867 edition, Dickens strenuously denied any specific input, writing that "Mr. Seymour never originated or suggested an incident, a phrase, or a word, to be found in the book.


From the publisher

When we consider Dickens's life and work, in comparison with that of the two great poets we have been studying, the contrast is startling. While Tennyson and Browning were being educated for the life of literature, and shielded most tenderly from the hardships of the world, Dickens, a poor, obscure, and suffering child, was helping to support a shiftless family by pasting labels on blacking bottles, sleeping under a counter like a homeless cat, and once a week timidly approaching the big prison where his father was confined for debt. In 1836 his Pickwick was published, and life was changed as if a magician had waved his wand over him. While the two great poets were slowly struggling for recognition, Dickens, with plenty of money and too much fame, was the acknowledged literary hero of England, the idol of immense audiences which gathered to applaud him wherever he appeared. And there is also this striking contrast between the novelist and the poets, --that while the whole tendency of the age was toward realism, away from the extremes of the romanticists and from the oddities and absurdities of the early novel writers, it was precisely by emphasizing oddities and absurdities, by making caricatures rather than characters, that Dickens first achieved his popularity

First Edition Identification

The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club first published in book format in 1837 by Chapman & Hall, London. It was illustrated with 43 engraved plates by R. Seymour and H. T. Browne.

Details

  • Title The Pickwick Papers
  • Author Charles Dickens
  • Binding Paperback
  • Pages 800
  • Volumes 1
  • Language ENG
  • Publisher Createspace Independent Publishing Platform
  • Date 2012-04-09
  • ISBN 9781475168228 / 1475168225
  • Weight 2.31 lbs (1.05 kg)
  • Dimensions 9.02 x 5.98 x 1.59 in (22.91 x 15.19 x 4.04 cm)
  • Reading level 1160
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The Pickwick Papers
Stock Photo: Cover May Be Different

The Pickwick Papers

by Charles Dickens

  • New
  • Paperback
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New
Binding
Paperback
ISBN 10 / ISBN 13
9781475168228 / 1475168225
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10
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Item Price
NZ$80.93
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Description:
Paperback / softback. New.
Item Price
NZ$80.93
NZ$21.16 shipping to USA