Mr. Charles Dickens The Pickwick Papers (1836 - 1837)

[GOLLUM]

Second off the rank then for March is The Pickwick Papers and the first 'novel' by Mr. Dickens published originally in serial format as 19 issues over a 20 month period of March 1836 - October 1837.

This is one of his I have read before but it was some while back, so I will definitely be reading it again for this month.

I have been tied up with work lately but I will still post some of my impressions of Sketches by Boz in the coming week before properly turning my attention to Pickwick Papers.

In the meantime, anyone wishing to post their thoughts on this work now, please do so!

Following is an online version courtesy of Project Gutenberg if you don't happen to own your own copy.

http://www.gutenberg.org/files/580/580-h/580-h.htm

Synopsis:

Few first novels have created as much popular excitement as The Pickwick Papers – a comic masterpiece that catapulted its twenty-four-year-old author to immediate fame.

Readers were captivated by the adventures of the poet Snodgrass, the lover Tupman, the sportsman Winkle and, above all, by that quintessentially English Quixote, Mr Pickwick, and 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 and incidents sprang to life from Dickens’s pen, to form an enduringly popular work of ebullient humour and literary invention.

Cheers.