This is the satirical masterpiece that catapulted Dickens into literary fame when it was first published in serialized form between 1836 and 1837. This Modern Library edition is set from the 1867 Charles Dickens edition and contains newly commissioned endnotes and a Reading Group Guide. Reissue.

Charles Dickens's satirical masterpiece, "The Pickwick Papers, catapulted the young writer into literary fame when it was first serialized in 1836-37. It recounts the rollicking adventures of the members of the Pickwick Club as they travel about England getting into all sorts of mischief. Laugh-out-loud funny and endlessly entertaining, the book also reveals Dickens's burgeoning interest in the parliamentary system, lawyers, the Poor Laws, and the ills of debtors' prisons. As G. K. Chesterton noted, "Before [Dickens] wrote a single real story, he had a kind of vision . . . a map full of fantastic towns, thundering coaches, clamorous market-places, uproarious inns, strange and swaggering figures. That vision was Pickwick."

The adventures of the immortal Pickwick Club, headed by good Mr. Pickwick himself, have kept readers laughing for nearly two centuries. Following the intrepidly bumbling Pickwickians along the highways and byways of old England, Charles Dickens creates a vivid world of highwaymen, duels, lawsuits, jails, and hilarious romantic imbroglios--but a world too of deeply affecting human warmth and generosity. Filled with a host of indelible characters, viii] The Pickwick Papers has never ceased to enjoy the popularity it won with its initial publication--when it rocketed its author to sudden fame and launched a career without equal in the history of the English novel.
With an Afterword by Jasper Fforde