Charles Dickens' first published work, "The Pickwick Papers" was an instant success that captured the public imagination with its colourful characters and farcical plot. Featuring the original illustrations, this title includes an introduction that discusses the genesis of "The Pickwick Papers" and the emergence of its central characters.

'One of my life's greatest tragedies is to have already read Pickwick Papers - I can't go back and read it for the first time' Fernando Pessoa

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 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, characters and incidents sprang to life from Dickens's pen, to form an enduringly popular work of ebullient humour and literary invention.

Edited with an Introduction and Notes by Mark Wormald