Nathaniel Winkle is a fictional character in Charles Dickens's first novel, The Pickwick Papers (1836).
Nathaniel Winkle by Thomas Nast (1873)
Mr. Winkle sups with Bob Sawyer - illustration by Hablot Knight Browne (1836)
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