Samuel Pickwick is a fictional character and the main protagonist in The Pickwick Papers (1836), the first novel by author Charles Dickens. One of the author's most famous and loved creations, Pickwick is a retired successful businessman and is the founder and chairman of the Pickwick Club, a club formed to explore places remote from London and investigate the quaint and curious phenomena of life found there.
Mr.Pickwick illustrated by 'Kyd' (1889)
Mr Pickwick as illustrated by Harold Copping in 1924
Robert Seymour illustration depicting Pickwick addressing the Pickwick Club (1836)
Mrs Bardell faints into the arms of Mr Pickwick - illustration by Frank Reynolds (1910)
The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club was the first novel by English author Charles Dickens. His previous work was Sketches by Boz, published in 1836, and his publisher Chapman & Hall asked Dickens to supply descriptions to explain a series of comic "cockney sporting plates" by illustrator Robert Seymour, and to connect them into a novel. The book became a publishing phenomenon, with bootleg copies, theatrical performances, Sam Weller joke books, and other merchandise. On its cultural impact, Nicholas Dames in The Atlantic writes, "'Literature' is not a big enough category for Pickwick. It defined its own, a new one that we have learned to call 'entertainment'." The Pickwick Papers was published in 19 issues over 20 months, and it popularised serialised fiction and cliffhanger endings.
Original cover issued in 1836
Master Humphrey meets Mr. Pickwick, from the Master Humphrey's Clock magazine sequel
The Goblin and the Sexton
Discovery of Jingle in the Fleet