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The Pickwick Papers

Charles Dickens

3.83 · Rating details · 23,962 ratings · 1,601 reviews

In 1836 the 23-year-old Dickens was invited by his publishers to write `a monthly something' illustrated by sporting plates. Thus the Pickwick Club was born: its supposed `papers' soom outgrew their origins and became a brilliantly comic novel, still among Dicken's most popular works. ...more

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Paperback, Oxford World's Classics, 784 pages

Published July 1st 2008 by Oxford University Press (first published 1837)

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Mar 17, 2017 Always Pouting rated it liked it · review of another edition

Oh god this was such a long read, the problem is I didn't realize going into it that Charles Dickens originally published this as a series over time and so I read the whole freaking thing at once and honestly there's only so much of this one can read at once and still enjoy. The writing itself was really good and Dickens is really witty. I found all of it really funny and amusing and I see why people would have liked it. I don't think I myself could enjoy it as much because it just felt like a T ...more

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Jun 15, 2013 Ahmad Sharabiani rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: fiction, humor, classics, 19th-century, literature, british, historical

The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club = The Pickwick Papers, Charles Dickens

The Pickwick Papers was Charles Dickens's first novel. He was asked to contribute to the project as an up-and-coming writer following the success of Sketches by Boz, published in 1836.

The novel's main character, Samuel Pickwick, Esquire, is a kind and wealthy old gentleman, the founder and perpetual president of the Pickwick Club. To extend his researches into the quaint and curious phenomena of life, he suggests The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club = The Pickwick Papers, Charles Dickens

The Pickwick Papers was Charles Dickens's first novel. He was asked to contribute to the project as an up-and-coming writer following the success of Sketches by Boz, published in 1836.

The novel's main character, Samuel Pickwick, Esquire, is a kind and wealthy old gentleman, 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 places remote from London and report on their findings to the other members of the club. Their travels throughout the English countryside by coach provide the chief theme of the novel.

A distinctive and valuable feature of the work is the generally accurate description of the old coaching inns of England. (One of the main families running the Bristol to Bath coaches at the time was started by Eleazer Pickwick).

عنوانها: عنوان: ماجراهای آقای پیک ویک؛ یادداشتهای پیک ویک؛ یادداشتهای آقای پیک ویک؛ نویسنده: چارلز دیکنز؛ تاریخ نخستین خوانش روز پانزدهم ماه ژوئن سال 1987 میلادی

عنوان: ماجراهای آقای پیک ویک؛ مترجم: محمدتقی دانیا؛ انتشارات فخر رازی؛

عنوان: یادداشتهای پیک ویک؛ مترجم: پرویز همتیان بروجنی؛ تهران، نشر چشمه، 1394؛ در دو جلد؛ شابک دوره: 9786002295095؛ شابک جلد یک 9786002295101؛ شابک جلد 2: 9786002295118؛ موضوع: داستانهای کلاسیک از نویسندگان انگلیسی سده 19 م

عنوان: یادداشتهای آقای پیک ویک؛ مترجم: آرمانوش باباخانیانس؛ تهران، اکباتان، 1396، در 192 ص؛ شابک: 9786006608587؛

آقای پیکویک، نجیب زاده ی پولداری ست، که اهل پژوهش است، و باشگاهی دارد، که اعضای باشگاه باهم دوست هستند، و ماجراهایی مختلفی میآفرینند که تا اندازه ای طنزآمیز است. ماجراها: خرابکاری در مهمانی، حاضر شدن در دادگاه و ....؛ رخدادها برای چند دوست با اخلاقهای ویژه؛ ...؛ «یادداشت‌های پیکویک» را «چالز دیکنز» در بیست و چهار سالگی بنگاشتند، و نخستین اثر داستانی ایشان نیز به شمار است. ایشان پیش از این، مجموعه ای از یادداشتهای مطبوعاتی خود را، که رنگ و بوی روایی نیز داشتند، در مطبوعات منتشر کرده بودند. موفقیت همین یادداشتها، باعث شد، ناشر پیشنهاد نوشتن داستانی دنباله دار به «دیکنز» بدهند، که حاصل آن، «یادداشتهای پیکویک» شد. «یادداشتهای پیکویک» چنان بر «داستایفسکی» تأثیر میگذارد، که به اعتراف خود ایشان، شخصیت اصلی رمان معروفش «ابله» را، با الهام و تاثیر پذیری از آقای «پیکویک»، و «دن کیشوت»، شکل میدهند. ا. شربیانی ...more

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Dec 23, 2019 Lisa rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: charles-dickens

Same procedure as last year, Mr Dickens?

Same procedure as every year, My Dear Reader!

Well, then. I officially declare the December Dickens challenge completed, and according to tradition, The Most Recently Read Dickens knocks the Previous Favourite off the pedestal.

As always, the Dickensian spirit manifests itself mainly in the minor characters and the villains. I would give my soul (to the care of a trustworthy person of Mr Pickwick's calibre, under no circumstances to lawyers like Dodson and F Same procedure as last year, Mr Dickens?

Same procedure as every year, My Dear Reader!

Well, then. I officially declare the December Dickens challenge completed, and according to tradition, The Most Recently Read Dickens knocks the Previous Favourite off the pedestal.

As always, the Dickensian spirit manifests itself mainly in the minor characters and the villains. I would give my soul (to the care of a trustworthy person of Mr Pickwick's calibre, under no circumstances to lawyers like Dodson and Fogg!) to listen in on some additional conversations between Samivel Veller and his dear father, the hater of vidders and lover of a proper eddication. If the Wellers add colour, heart and soul to the picaresque adventures of the Pickwick Clubbers, Mr Jingle and Mr Trotter are their perfectly drawn antitheses, as is the dear Mrs Bardell, whose real fainting in the debtor's prison showed that a well orchestrated fake fainting has a tendency to be much more useful and effective than the feeble original.

Mr Pickwick himself is a descendant of the great Don Quixote, and the windmills of Chancery are harder to fight than most dragons, and they clearly demand a sequel - which promises to be a bleak story.

Sam Weller is outperforming Sancho Pansa in wit and energy, and most definitely is his equal in loyalty and love.

What more can be said that hasn't been said a thousand times before, regarding Charles Dickens' unique universe? What can be added except the inevitable Oliver Twist quote: "Please Sir, I want some more", expecting a rich literary meal rather than a thin gruel, no matter which novel will knock this one off the favourite place next year?

I could join Fernando Pessoa, claiming one of the great tragedies of my life now being that I can never again enjoy the pleasure of reading the Pickwick Papers for the very first time. But that will never do! Another Dickens is safely stored in my inner treasure chest where the reading pleasures of Christmasses past are located.

To the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come! Some more! ...more

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Jan 19, 2014 Bionic Jean rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: classics, charles-dickens, around-the-world-challenge, read-authors-c-d, humour, 19th-century-ish

Have you read The Pickwick Papers? It does seem to be the one work by Charles Dickens which is sadly neglected by many readers.

"The Pickwick Papers" was originally published in 19 monthly magazine instalments, from March 1836 to October 1837, this last being a double issue. They were then reissued in a volume as The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club in 1839 when Dickens was still only 25. They comprise humorous sketches, themselves interspersed with incidental tales, such as "The Goblins w ...more

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Jan 08, 2013 Darwin8u rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: 2014

“what was over couldn't be begun, and what couldn't be cured must be endured;”
― Charles Dickens, The Pickwick Papers

description

This book morphed a couple times in my brain. It started off a bit uneven, filled with vignettes and sketches that seemed to anticipate the later genius of Dickens and even presented several shadows of future books and stories. After 100 pages I figured I would have another 700 pages of various Pickwick club digressions. There would be interesting characters (Sam Weller, Alfred ...more

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Mar 05, 2012 MJ Nicholls rated it it was amazing

Shelves: pre-1900s, voluminous, oxford-classics, novels, sassysassenachs, art-or-illustrated, picaresque

The middle classes in this country still aspire to some half-baked bucolic idyll—renting a farmhouse, living off the land, swinging on a hammock reading Balzac while buxom farmlasses frolic in the Devonshire sun. The reality? The work involved in milking cows, shearing sheep, fattening chickens requires the brawny pluck of a youngster, not the snoozy disregard of the doddery, and those farmhouse repairs won’t repair themselves, those bills won’t pay themselves . . . until the call of the one-bed ...more

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Jun 13, 2011 Jan-Maat added it · review of another edition

Shelves: british-isles, 19th-century, novel, dickens, humour

I read this out in the garden, of the small house my parents bought before buying an even smaller one in a moderately more expensive street, anyhow I sat in a broad bottomed wicker chair beneath a flowering jasmine bush(view spoiler), one summer many years ago. It was the first book by Dickens that I enjoyed I read this out in the garden, of the small house my parents bought before buying an even smaller one in a moderately more expensive street, anyhow I sat in a broad bottomed wicker chair beneath a flowering jasmine bush(view spoiler), one summer many years ago. It was the first book by Dickens that I enjoyed reading.

While out on my morning walk through the fog (view spoiler) my thoughts fell into my climbing pace and I noticed that this is a model for a transition to novel writing - a loose series of episodes linked by a common cast of characters, who travel about the map having typical English adventures - a cricket match, an election day (view spoiler), a picnic, allowing Dickens to move from writing newspaper sketches to a novel without having to worry much about plot, it struck me that anyone could perhaps try to write a novel like that even me(view spoiler)the flood of digressions almost made me smile as much as the flock of Sunday School children who had blocked my path the day before, leaving me to smile with half my face as their coffee cup wielding supervisors strove to shepherd them across a road. Don Quixote no doubt would have read this as a melancholy company of prisoners of war being marched to some grim camp and challenged their guardians to trial by battle, but I have a peaceful disposition.

These early books by Dickens were the ones which were translated in to French and then went on to influence European literature in the early nineteenth century with its broad humour of odd characters and mixing social classes in comic situations although I suppose Cervantes is the ultimate model for that coming down to shape Dickens via Smolett among others, since I tend to pronounce 'th' as 'f' (view spoiler) in a lasting tribute to my early sauf London upbringing I was interested in Dickens' rendering of the Wellers speech patterns. I don't know, it is nice to see a nod to distinctive speech patterns , but it establishes a hierarchy of language at the same time those whose words are spelt correctly, speak correctly, but luckily for me no one can hear me type this. ...more

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Dec 20, 2012 Jonfaith rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

The Pickwick Papers promised heft. Weighing in at 900 pages and larded with indices and erudite observations, the project promised muscle training, if nothing else. The serial natural of the narrative and general zany approach was also apprehended. I simply wasn't prepared, however, for Sam Weller. Oh lord, he may be my favorite character in recent memory. I wasn't prepared for such. I was expecting tales of the idle and curious confronting rural and proletarian situations, if only for hilarity ...more

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Jun 26, 2014 Cindy Newton rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: owned-books, to-read-in-2016, classic-lit-english

I'm sure that nothing I say here has not already been said, but here goes. This is the most light-hearted Dickens' I've read thus far, although there are hints and glimpses of his social activism to be found. This is his first novel, and you can see the seeds of who he will become already sprouting. It is amazing to read this and realize that he wrote this when he was 24. 24!!! Besides his youth, the method of writing is very limiting--he writes this in serial form, so each installment leaves hi I'm sure that nothing I say here has not already been said, but here goes. This is the most light-hearted Dickens' I've read thus far, although there are hints and glimpses of his social activism to be found. This is his first novel, and you can see the seeds of who he will become already sprouting. It is amazing to read this and realize that he wrote this when he was 24. 24!!! Besides his youth, the method of writing is very limiting--he writes this in serial form, so each installment leaves his hands to be published and cannot be edited. How many novelists can work under the pressure of being unable to make changes in their work? Not to mention that he begins the serial presentation of Oliver Twist while still producing The Pickwick Papers. Such a schedule had to have been grueling for the young writer.

His talent for satire and caricature are already on display here as he introduces us to a procession of comic characters as the Pickwickians bumble from one adventure to the next. My favorite characters were Mr. Jingle, a sly con-artist who manages to get the best of the Pickwickians in several instances before getting his comeuppance, and the Wellers, both father and son. Their comical exchanges frequently brought a smile to my face. Sam, as Mr. Pickwick's faithful manservant, brings some much-needed common sense and street-smarts to the credulous quartet. We can see where Sam acquires his rather cynical view of humanity when we are introduced to his father, the career coachman whose household felicity is being sabotaged by a hypocritical "shepherd" who has the gullible Mrs. Weller in thrall. There are far too many characters who make their brief but impressionable appearances in these pages to acknowledge, but Dickens' genius for creating these images, both grotesque and farcical, of people we can recognize and identify with is already apparent, although it will continue to develop in each successive venture.

This is a must-read for any ardent Dickens fan, or for someone looking to become one (which, in my opinion, should be everyone)! ...more

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Jan 12, 2017 Perry rated it really liked it · review of another edition

It's over, and can't be helped,...as they always say in Turkey when they cut the wrong man's head off."

“She dotes on poetry, sir. She adores it; I may say that her whole soul and mind are wound up, and entwined with it. She has produced some delightful pieces, herself, sir. You may have met with her 'Ode to an Expiring Frog,' sir.”

“Can I view thee panting, lying
On thy stomach, without sighing;
Can I unmoved see thee dying
On a log
Expiring frog!”

I agree generally with my Goodreads friends' rev ...more

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Sep 16, 2013 Barry Pierce rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: read-in-2014, 19th-century

Who needs a plot when you have wit?! This is less a novel more a series of continued vignettes disguised as a narrative, and I really liked it. It's essentially "Three Men in a Boat" but 950 pages long.

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Jan 04, 2012 ·Karen· rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: mttbr-2012

I found this while clearing out the cellar. The price inside the front cover is one pound seventy five, and there's a card inside from an antiquarian bookshop in St Andrews. I have zero recall of buying it, although I do remember visits to St Andrews, and losing one daughter in the haar at the beach. Luckily it was the sensible daughter, not inclined to panic.

"The Biographical Edition, edited by Arthur Waugh, father of Evelyn Waugh, with his introduction in each volume. Waugh had been appointed I found this while clearing out the cellar. The price inside the front cover is one pound seventy five, and there's a card inside from an antiquarian bookshop in St Andrews. I have zero recall of buying it, although I do remember visits to St Andrews, and losing one daughter in the haar at the beach. Luckily it was the sensible daughter, not inclined to panic.

"The Biographical Edition, edited by Arthur Waugh, father of Evelyn Waugh, with his introduction in each volume. Waugh had been appointed managing director of Chapman and Hall in 1902 and wasted no time in capitalizing on the firm’s most famous asset.

Original 19 volume set, was supplemented with two additional volumes “Miscellaneous Papers” and “Life of Charles Dickens” by John Forster all in uniform green buckram binding with gilt lettering on spine and gold crest on front cover."

That's the one! Green binding with gold lettering and crest! Unfortunately it has not aged well, at least not as a physical object. Paper: yellow and too thin, allowing the print on the reverse to shimmer through, and a curiously hard-on-the-eyes typeface. This is partly what slowed me down - there are not enough lamps in the whole of IKEA to make it easy on the peepers.

So this is the one that changed everything. This is the one that proved it possible to actually make money from writing. Chapman & Hall rubbed their hands with glee all the way to the bank, and when the original contract for 20 monthly numbers finished in October 1837, they understandably wanted to continue their lucrative partnership with Boz. They had managed to keep their rising star sweet by giving him bonuses, but now they had to re-negotiate the monthly payments. In April 1836, when Dickens started Pickwick, he was paid 20 pounds a month. For Nicholas Nickleby he was offered (dramatic pause) one hundred and fifty. Per month. At a time when an annual income of 100 pounds qualified you into respectability. Incredible really.

And although it's chortlingly funny in places and although Mr Pickwick himself is quite adorable, it's a teeny bit hard to understand the hold he had over the reading public of 1836. To some extent its spectacular sales have to be ascribed to a kind of desperation, a starvation. The growing lower middle classes must have been crying out for good stories to read - any other form of entertainment was usually not quite respectable. The only cheap books available were those that were out of copyright - in other words old. New books were beyond the ornery family's means. Affordable alternatives were the 'blood and thunders' - the cheap, nasty, low form of publication that all Dickens's friends warned him against. He would ruin his reputation by associating himself with this kind of weekly or monthly stuff that revolved around Gothic horror, violent crime and sex. So the revolution was not serial publication itself, but the fact that Dickens took this cheap format and went up market with it. A shilling a shot, at a time when a skilled worker in London was earning 30s a week, and his shilling could buy him two pounds of meat. Not cheap. But worth it for several hours of entertainment, and, crucially perhaps, entertainment that you could take home and allow your wife, your daughter and even the serving maid to read. There's nothing here to make a lady blush or corrupt the lower orders either. Good clean fun. And he doesn't make it too obvious that he's filling pages for the money. I mean he doesn't just stuff it with pages and pages of dialogue - nice short lines you see, fills the page nice and quick. He doesn't do that. It's value for money that he offers. Maybe no longer the sort of thing that will clear the streets while everyone reads the latest installment. But a phenomenon nonetheless.

...more

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Jan 02, 2015 Manray9 rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: brit-lit

It has been quite some time since a book made me laugh out loud. Charles Dickens' Pickwick Papers, or more properly The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club, did so again and again. The book arose from Dickens' engagement to provide descriptions to accompany a series of comic prints in the popular genre of the picture novel. Dickens' captions grew into serialized articles which appeared in nineteen installments over twenty months during 1836-37. They were then compiled into his first novel and ...more

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Jan 26, 2016 aPriL does feral sometimes rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: literary, adventure, historical-fiction, humor, favorites

Gorgeous writing lifts 'The Pickwick Papers' into an upper stratosphere! It isn't often a farce gets five stars from me. This may be Charles Dickens' first novel, built out of a newspaper serial, but there is nothing here to indicate to me that Dickens was struggling to find his voice! He comes out of the gate full speed! Everything which has most critics adoring his later books is here: social satire, a comprehensive set of lively and memorable contemporary 19th-century comical and lovable char Gorgeous writing lifts 'The Pickwick Papers' into an upper stratosphere! It isn't often a farce gets five stars from me. This may be Charles Dickens' first novel, built out of a newspaper serial, but there is nothing here to indicate to me that Dickens was struggling to find his voice! He comes out of the gate full speed! Everything which has most critics adoring his later books is here: social satire, a comprehensive set of lively and memorable contemporary 19th-century comical and lovable characters representing all sectors of society - lawyers, doctors, politically-connected newspaper owners, military soldiers, wealthy educated gentry, the working poor and the middle-class from small farming communities and the slums of London struggling to earn whatever coin they can find whether by legal or illegal means. Also, a ridiculous legal judgement imposed on Samuel Pickwick, the main character whom most of the book follows on several journeys around London and in various adventures in surrounding country inns gives Dickens the opportunity to describe a famous prison where people who could not pay their bills were incarcerated, very likely based on the actual imprisonment of Dicken’s father.

The first chapter opens with a formal proclamation being announced to society of an assignment being given to the most highly respected member of an association, along with other friends:

'That the said proposal has received the sanction and approval of this Association. 'That the Corresponding Society of the Pickwick Club is therefore hereby constituted; and that Samuel Pickwick, Esq., G.C.M.P.C., Tracy Tupman, Esq., M.P.C., Augustus Snodgrass, Esq., M.P.C., and Nathaniel Winkle, Esq., M.P.C., are hereby nominated and appointed members of the same; and that they be requested to forward, from time to time, authenticated accounts of their journeys and investigations, of their observations of character and manners, and of the whole of their adventures, together with all tales and papers to which local scenery or associations may give rise, to the Pickwick Club, stationed in London.

Dickens, Charles (2007-09-18). Works of Charles Dickens (200+ Works) The Adventures of Oliver Twist, Great Expectations, A Christmas Carol, A Tale of Two Cities, Bleak House, David Copperfield & more (mobi) (Kindle Locations 161029-161033). MobileReference. Kindle Edition.

The meeting does not occur quite as smoothly as this proclamation suggests; there is almost a fistfight among members because of, perhaps, misunderstandings and insults. In any case, the 2-year exploratory set of journeys is begun. Adventures great and small (mostly small) are told in many chapters, and many peculiar individuals cross the path of Pickwick and his friends as they travel in search of edifying experiences with which they hope to educate themselves about their world. Although humorous accidents and failures of judgement cause much trouble and consternation for the intrepid travelers, there is also enlightenment, love, dinner parties, dancing and best of all, lots of good strong ale!

Despite some misadventures, the travelers find much that they enjoy:

“In plain commonplace matter-of-fact, then, it was a fine morning--so fine that you would scarcely have believed that the few months of an English summer had yet flown by. Hedges, fields, and trees, hill and moorland, presented to the eye their ever-varying shades of deep rich green; scarce a leaf had fallen, scarce a sprinkle of yellow mingled with the hues of summer, warned you that autumn had begun. The sky was cloudless; the sun shone out bright and warm; the songs of birds, the hum of myriads of summer insects, filled the air; and the cottage gardens, crowded with flowers of every rich and beautiful tint, sparkled, in the heavy dew, like beds of glittering jewels. Everything bore the stamp of summer, and none of its beautiful colour had yet faded from the die.”

Dickens, Charles (2007-09-18). Works of Charles Dickens (200+ Works) The Adventures of Oliver Twist, Great Expectations, A Christmas Carol, A Tale of Two Cities, Bleak House, David Copperfield & more (mobi) (Kindle Locations 164672-164678). MobileReference. Kindle Edition.

‘The Pickwick Papers’ is entirely made of beautiful colors! ...more

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Feb 02, 2020 Avery America rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

I'm not yet finished with this book, but I can say with certitude that it's one of my favorite works by Dickens. Everything in the book - the hustle and bustle of 19th-century English life, the silly adventures experienced by the company, and the close-knit friendships between the characters, is so artfully done for a first novel that it makes for wonderful reading again and again.

I find the four Pickwickians to be so closely intertwined in their escapades that it warms one's heart just to read ...more

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Jun 25, 2007 Brad rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: novel

Dickens' first novel shows his comic gift and knack for character development. Really a string of connected episodes rather than a complex novel as he later created, this is still an enjoyable romp.

My generic comment about Charles Dickens:
First of all, although I am a partisan of Dickens' writing and have read and relished most his works, I concede to three flaws in his oeuvre that are not insignificant. First, while he seemed to develop an almost endless variety of male social types, his female ...more

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Apr 23, 2013 Vit Babenco rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

The Pickwick Papers was the first novel by Charles Dickens but I’ve read it last. I was always afraid to start but once I did it proved to be a real pageturner for me.
“There sat the man who had traced to their source the mighty ponds of Hampstead, and agitated the scientific world with his Theory of Tittlebats, as calm and unmoved as the deep waters of the one on a frosty day, or as a solitary specimen of the other in the inmost recesses of an earthen jar.”
The specific sense of humour is inimita ...more

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Jun 03, 2018 Jessica rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: educational-challenge-2014, own, theclassics

Utterly delightful! I knew nothing about this book except it was about something called The Pickwick Club, and is alluded to in other books, like The Hiding Place and Little Women. But I recently decided that I should really read Dickens' other books, since I do enjoy Great Expectations and A Christmas Carol so much!

There's not really a plot here, but what there is is a gentleman traveling around England, making friends and enemies, and giving us a look into English society at the time: lawsuit ...more

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Jan 06, 2014 Roy Lotz rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: anglophilia, novels-novellas-short-stories

“It’s always best on these occasions to do what the mobs do.”
“But suppose there are two mobs?” suggested Mr. Snodgrass.
“Shout with the largest,” replied Mr. Pickwick.

This is a tough book to review, because it doesn’t seem to need one. The Pickwick Papers is, for the most part, a silly, uncomplicated, and enjoyable novel. His first book, Charles Dickens wrote it at the ripe old age of twenty-four, when most of us are hardly prepared to read a book of this length, much less write one. Dickens ...more

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Oct 06, 2014 Douglas Wilson rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: classics, fiction

Okay, so I have a confession to make. I have never really read any Dickens. Some of my family were big into him, but I never got around to it. I may have read A Christmas Carol some time, but don't think that counts. At any rate, one of my projects consists of always reading some Chesterton, and as it happened, I am now reading Chesterton's collection of pieces on Dickens. So Chesterton convinced me that I needed to read some Dickens, and so I chose Pickwick. I enjoyed it as I went, and by the e ...more

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Sep 26, 2019 Lisa Wolf rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: classic-fiction

Done, finally! I've been on a mission to read more Dickens, and ended up reading Pickwick Papers with my book group this year. Parts are quite funny, and overall it's silly and endearing, but it lacks the deeper impact of some of his masterpieces.

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Sep 14, 2013 Tracey rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: charles-dickens

I began reading this hilariously comical,slapstick,humorous book just after 1am New Years day. (I had been chomping at the bit to start it and it didn't disappoint.)
All month I have read every day 2 chapters and made notes of what happened in most, and nearly every day I have had a smile on my face.
The first day I was taken by a description of Mr Pickwicks apparel...I love this description in the opening few pages that "Pickwicks tights and gaiters if they had been on an ordinary man' would have I began reading this hilariously comical,slapstick,humorous book just after 1am New Years day. (I had been chomping at the bit to start it and it didn't disappoint.)
All month I have read every day 2 chapters and made notes of what happened in most, and nearly every day I have had a smile on my face.
The first day I was taken by a description of Mr Pickwicks apparel...I love this description in the opening few pages that "Pickwicks tights and gaiters if they had been on an ordinary man' would have passed without observation but when Pickwick 'clothed them' they inspired involuntary awe and respect."
As well as Mr Pickwick we are introduced to Mr Winkle (sportsman?) Mr Tupman (Ladiesman?) and Mr Snodgrass (poet?).
These said gentlemen are the Pickwick club and go with Mr Pickwick on his travels around the country.
About a quarter of the way into the book we are introduced to "Samivel Sam Weller" who is the cockniest cokney I have ever 'heard' !! and I admit on occasion I had to double back to check what was being said but I bet this way of writing worked brilliantly when it was read aloud as I assume it would have been to many people on its release and how excited they must have been to get the next part so eagerly waited for and bought by many to share.
Sam turns out to be a wonderful and very loyal servant to Mr P so much so that he finds a way to be in Fleet debtors prison with him when he is accused of breach of promise by an ambitious widow.
Mr Pickwick is saddened to see Messrs Jingle and Trotter in the "poor" side of the prison half starved and very sorry. These 2 reprobates had caused so much trouble for the "Pickwickians" on there travels around the country eloping with a lady who had to be saved, a pair of conmen but even then Pickwick found it in his heart to forgive them.
In between the main story are others told by minor characters of which my favorite is "The Bagmans Uncle" a spooky story about the mail coaches which i will re read on its own.
There is a plethora of adventures, misadventures, marriages,parties,elopements, and even an election within the pages of this book and it was a great pleasure to have joined them over my month of reading about them.
A final quote from Mr Dickens that felt like I was leaving old friends,
"It is the fate of men who mingle with the world and attain even the prime of life,to make many real friends and lose them in the course of nature.It is the fate of all authors or chroniclers to create imaginary friends and lose them in the course of art"
I add to this that.. "It is the fate of all readers to find friends within the pages of a book and to have to leave them at the close" ...more

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Apr 25, 2010 Duffy Pratt rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Shelves: classic

This book caused a huge sensation when it first appeared in serialization. I'm at a loss. It makes me wonder whether people in Victorian England had anything to do.

I initially tried to read this along the serialization schedule, finishing several chapters a month. That didn't work out. Ordinarily, that plan fails because I can't wait to rush ahead. Here, the problem was that nothing was luring me back to this book, and I happily read other things I found more interesting and entertaining. But, I ...more

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Jan 07, 2018 Tristram Shandy rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: classic-english-literature, favourites

“We are all the victims of circumstances, and I the greatest.”

Thus Mr. Pickwick, in a fit of despair quite untypical of him, bemoans his fate when he learns that his landlady, Mrs. Bardell, is suing him for breach of promise, and indeed, a victim of circumstances he often is: In the course of one single, albeit voluminous (and delightful) novel, Mr. Pickwick, among other things, finds himself reviled by an obstinate club member, attacked by a pugnacious coachman, charged at by soldiers during a ...more

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Jun 29, 2012 Gwen rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: literary-spinach, favorites

I wish I had gotten around to reading Charles Dickens before my English teacher did, because I have spent most of my life erroneously believing that I loathed the author, only to force myself recently into reading through his work in chronological order and discovering that I LOVE Charles Dickens.

Seriously, this book is terrible on a technical level, having a plot which wanders all over the place, characters doing a lot of mundane things like eating, going hunting, telling stories which have not I wish I had gotten around to reading Charles Dickens before my English teacher did, because I have spent most of my life erroneously believing that I loathed the author, only to force myself recently into reading through his work in chronological order and discovering that I LOVE Charles Dickens.

Seriously, this book is terrible on a technical level, having a plot which wanders all over the place, characters doing a lot of mundane things like eating, going hunting, telling stories which have nothing to do with the plot, etc., but the characters and the writing style are so fun that you forget that the whole thing is just one big shaggy dog ramble. I wouldn't normally be tempted to give 5 stars to something like that, but Dickens made it work for me somehow.

When I was young, I think to a certain extent I believed that Dickens was a horror writer. The ghosts from Christmas Carol terrified me when I was a small child, and later in English class, we read the scene from Great Expectations where Pip meets Miss Havisham, and the description of Miss Havisham left me with the impression that she was much like the Cryptkeeper from Tales From the Crypt in a wedding gown. Everything I was exposed to about Dickens when I was young left me with the impression that he was a wordy, depressing bore, or just too scary for me.

It probably does not help that English teachers everywhere seem to be enamored of his later "serious books" (read: heavy, depressing tragedies). They are also guilty of burdening what work we do study with obtuse discussions of symbolism, Jungian psychology, and all the other usual methods that teachers use to foster an "appreciation" (read: strong hatred) of classic literature.

But here's the thing: you need to make reading FUN if you want to win over new converts to the Church of Dickens or Shakespeare or anyone else, guys. His early novels may be silly fun, and sometimes read as though they were written by a Victorian J.K. Rowling, but that is actually a STRONG point in Dickens' favor! The early Harry Potter books were much the same way - silly, fluffy - but reading those first prepares the reader to accept the darker, more serious tone of the latter books, because we are already in love with the author and therefore care about what happens to the author's characters.

I believe this is the crucial point as to why Dickens was so loved and sold wildly with his original Victorian audience, but later generations perceive him as depressing school drudgework, an author you HAVE to read, but really don't want to. He was introduced to the Victorians by books like Pickwick Papers and Sketches by Boz, not by Bleak House. (ugh, the name alone sounds like a chore to read)

If you've ever stalled out with Dickens by starting with his later books, I encourage you to give him a try in chronological order of publication. I'm personally looking forward to the later books now, because I have become a Dickensian convert by the persuasive power of this book. ...more

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Mar 30, 2014 El rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: big-effing-books, 19th-centurylit-early

Charles Dickens was in his mid-20s when he wrote The Pickwick Papers. I'm in my mid-30s and I think just going to work in the morning makes me pretty successful.

Don't go into reading this as a linear novel. These are loosely-connected stories surrounding the members of the Pickwick Club. In fact, the actual title of the book is The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club containing a faithful record of the perambulations, perils, travels, adventures and sporting transactions of the corresponding ...more

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Jan 28, 2017 Emily Dybdahl rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: brit-lit

Mr. Pickwick is a middle-aged gentleman of considerable means who enjoys life and adventures and wants to share that joy with his best friends. He has taken under his wing several young men, and though he remains a bachelor, he still maintains a "father but also friend" relationship with these other members of the Pickwick Club.
The personality of Mr. Pickwick is quixotic but less daft. He loves to party but is very generous and keeps a sharp lookout on the well-being of his friends and those on Mr. Pickwick is a middle-aged gentleman of considerable means who enjoys life and adventures and wants to share that joy with his best friends. He has taken under his wing several young men, and though he remains a bachelor, he still maintains a "father but also friend" relationship with these other members of the Pickwick Club.
The personality of Mr. Pickwick is quixotic but less daft. He loves to party but is very generous and keeps a sharp lookout on the well-being of his friends and those on whom he takes pity. He's also a stubborn man of principle and when an unfair court case determines against him, he decides to go to debtor's prison rather than pay the sleazy lawyers.
He might be the main character of the story, but the guy who really stole the show is Sam Weller. (Or is it Veller? Probably Veller, but he interchanges his "w's" and "v's" so it's hard to tell! I've encountered this before in reading Dickens, but usually he has his characters only substitute "w's" for "v's" and not vice versa too...but this is his first big famous novel so maybe he toned it down later in life...All I know is, it mixes me up in reading the rest of the book for awhile and I'm so curious if people really spoke like that? It doesn't make any linguistic sense to me but I'm not an expert.) Anyway, Sam Weller is the prime comedian, prime sidekick, and prime voice of reason-calm, chill in every situation, hilariously but not always consciously offensive, stubborn, fiercely loyal, and discerningly affectionate. He's a better Sancho Panza to Pickwick's Quixote. Nothing fazes him.
This book reminded me of Don Quixote too in that it included some stories within the story, and between these often very dark inner stories, and the mostly lighthearted larger story, Dickens showed his anecdotes about society, and I found some of them to be limited to his time period while some were timeless. As one (timeless) example, Mr. Tiggins is a character who is a "reverend" but more so a cult leader of the local temperance society. Mr. Tiggins is that greatly exaggerated person who is a complete hypocrite, being that he is an extreme alcoholic, who has probably decided to lead a temperance society because of his weaselly manipulative nature in conning the ladies into giving him money "for a great cause". "Mr. Stiggins did not desire his hearers to be upon their guard against those false prophets and wretched mockers of religion, who, without sense to expound its first doctrines or hearts to feel its first principles, are more dangerous members of society than the common criminal, imposing, as they necessarily do, upon the weakest and worst informed, casting scorn and contempt on what should be held most sacred and bringing into partial disrepute large bodies of virtuous and well-conducted persons of many excellent sects and persuasions."
This novel, like the ones I've read before by Dickens, was light-hearted and entertaining and just a fun read, but was also clever and thought-provoking. I'd recommend to anyone who doesn't mind reading books that are super long. ...more

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Sep 19, 2016 Blaine DeSantis rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

I loved this book and am now proud to proclaim myself a Pickwickian!! For years I shied away from Dickens and his novels. But a few years ago I began with A Tale of Two Cities and loved it, despite its overuse of commas and semi-colons! So I decided to give Dickens a try and bought the first five of his novels in paperback form and his entire collection on Kindle. For a year the books just sat on the shelf and stared at me, as did books by Victor Hugo and Dumas. I kept saying I was going to star I loved this book and am now proud to proclaim myself a Pickwickian!! For years I shied away from Dickens and his novels. But a few years ago I began with A Tale of Two Cities and loved it, despite its overuse of commas and semi-colons! So I decided to give Dickens a try and bought the first five of his novels in paperback form and his entire collection on Kindle. For a year the books just sat on the shelf and stared at me, as did books by Victor Hugo and Dumas. I kept saying I was going to start reading Dickens and finally the time came. The Pickwick Papers became my summer reading, as it is a easy book to put down and read others in between, but as time wore on Pickwick's adventures claimed more of my time until about 4 days ago I decided the time had come to finish it before Autumn began and I have accomplished that!!
This is Dickens first novel and you can really see the serialized nature of the book as 2-3 chapters were published in his monthly paper. It is a humorous book with many passages causing me to laugh out loud. His characters are great and they are an oddball variety of people who either go with or whom he meets on his two-year trek to discover England. Pickwick had been a rather unwordly person, and who sees the world though almost child-like eyes. Good-hearted and always ready to see the best in everyone, this book is a collection of events during his travels.
It is early Dickens but you can already see the keen eye he casts upon so many aspects of British life and society. You can see his disdain for lawyers, his shocking descriptions of debtors prison, his portrayal of doctors all in this book. Yet, wherever he goes he finds an adventure. Probably the weakest parts of the book, for me, is when he throws in totally unrelated tales that he hears of things that have absolutely nothing to do with the book. Some are good but many are just so-so and I could have done without. My favorite of these stories was of the Goblins that stole a Sexton and was related on Christmas Eve. Good story. There are loads of fun and funny characters, there are many scenes that make you just want to laugh out loud until the very last page where we are left with an elderly Pickwick now living in London. It was with a tear that I finished this book, as I felt I had made friends with Mr. Pickwick and his fellow travelers and companions. But it also put me in a mood to read more Dickens, including A Christmas Carol which I have yet to read in my 63 years here on earth. And so I come to the end of this review and give a hale and hearty cheer to my good friend Samuel Pickwick, I will never forget you or your adventures and you have kindled in my heart and spirit a feeling of goodness and revelry that has been missing for the past few years. Farewell Pickwick, we part as friends and say goodbye all the while knowing that you have added one more loyal and dedicated member to The Pickwick Society. Friends and Pickwickians to the end!! ...more

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Dec 30, 2014 poncho rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: read-in-2015

Written in a very witty narrative, depicting memorable characters such as Sam Weller, The Pickwick Papers is the announcement of one of the greatest writers ever, who wrote this at the same age of he who is currently writing this deficient intent of a review. If you're in the mood for humour and yet you want to taste the treats of high-quality literature, this book may be what you're looking for. Its characters will surely be impregnated in your heart for ever, as well as some passages and some ...more

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Sep 11, 2017 Antonia rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: favorites

If you read much Dickens, you can tell that this tale is not quite as dark as others; without as much gloom and visions of good v evil as in his other works. This is a wonderful story and its most memorable character is the affable Sam Weller who is poor, humble, hardworking and just plain good and fun to listen to especially with his comparison speech and amusing sayings. Timson is a skilled and clever reader with all of the voices and inflections probably just as Dickens would have wanted them ...more

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Goodreads Librari...: ISBN refers to wrong edition of a Book	7	20	Mar 24, 2020 04:30PM
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The Old Curiosity...: The story in illustrations	32	13	Aug 06, 2018 09:18AM
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About Charles Dickens

Charles Dickens

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Charles John Huffam Dickens was a writer and social critic who created some of the world's best-known fictional characters and is regarded as the greatest novelist of the Victorian era. His works enjoyed unprecedented popularity during his lifetime, and by the twentieth century critics and scholars had recognised him as a literary genius. His novels and short stories enjoy lasting popularity.

Dicke Charles John Huffam Dickens was a writer and social critic who created some of the world's best-known fictional characters and is regarded as the greatest novelist of the Victorian era. His works enjoyed unprecedented popularity during his lifetime, and by the twentieth century critics and scholars had recognised him as a literary genius. His novels and short stories enjoy lasting popularity.

Dickens left school to work in a factory when his father was incarcerated in a debtors' prison. Despite his lack of formal education, he edited a weekly journal for 20 years, wrote 15 novels, five novellas, hundreds of short stories and non-fiction articles, lectured and performed extensively, was an indefatigable letter writer, and campaigned vigorously for children's rights, education, and other social reforms.

Dickens was regarded as the literary colossus of his age. His 1843 novella, A Christmas Carol, remains popular and continues to inspire adaptations in every artistic genre. Oliver Twist and Great Expectations are also frequently adapted, and, like many of his novels, evoke images of early Victorian London. His 1859 novel, A Tale of Two Cities, set in London and Paris, is his best-known work of historical fiction. Dickens's creative genius has been praised by fellow writers—from Leo Tolstoy to George Orwell and G. K. Chesterton—for its realism, comedy, prose style, unique characterisations, and social criticism. On the other hand, Oscar Wilde, Henry James, and Virginia Woolf complained of a lack of psychological depth, loose writing, and a vein of saccharine sentimentalism. The term Dickensian is used to describe something that is reminiscent of Dickens and his writings, such as poor social conditions or comically repulsive characters.

On 8 June 1870, Dickens suffered another stroke at his home after a full day's work on Edwin Drood. He never regained consciousness, and the next day he died at Gad's Hill Place. Contrary to his wish to be buried at Rochester Cathedral "in an inexpensive, unostentatious, and strictly private manner," he was laid to rest in the Poets' Corner of Westminster Abbey. A printed epitaph circulated at the time of the funeral reads: "To the Memory of Charles Dickens (England's most popular author) who died at his residence, Higham, near Rochester, Kent, 9 June 1870, aged 58 years. He was a sympathiser with the poor, the suffering, and the oppressed; and by his death, one of England's greatest writers is lost to the world." His last words were: "On the ground", in response to his sister-in-law Georgina's request that he lie down.

(from Wikipedia) ...more

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“Happy, happy Christmas, that can win us back to the delusions of our childish days; that can recall to the old man the pleasures of his youth; that can transport the sailor and the traveller, thousands of miles away, back to his own fire-side and his quiet home!” — 105 likes

“Poetry makes life what lights and music do the stage.” — 64 likes

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