Brown leather binding with gilt banding, decoration and title on the spine. Gilt line edging on the boards. All edges red marbled with matching endpapers.

F.B.A. provides an in-depth photographic presentation of this item to stimulate your feeling and touch. More traditional book descriptions are immediately available.

Originally published as monthly partworks and then rebound into volumes this two-volume Jubilee revamp is just superb.

The Pickwick Papers was Charles Dickens‘ first novel, which he published in 1836. Dickens is one of the most prolific writers to come out of the Victorian Era, the time in British history which spanned 1820-1914. The Victorian Era is named in relation to its influence from Queen Victoria (1837-1901) who brought a period of great industrial, educational, and social advances. Although this was a time of much growth for Britain, it came with high consequences, which Dickens commonly wrote about.

Dickens, like many Victorian authors, criticized the negative effects of the Industrial Revolution and attempts at social advances, mainly the way they harmed lower classes. Influenced by his own experiences, Dickens often commentated on class divisions and oppressive systems. Using satire (a genre which uses comedy and exaggeration to criticize societal issues), he is known for using realistic characters and plots to explore the tragic effects of living in the underbelly of a rapidly changing society.

Genre of The Pickwick Papers

Dickens’ Pickwick Papers is a picaresque novel, a genre which tells the adventures of a lower-class main character who, despite the corruption and cruelty of society, becomes a hero. The Pickwick Papers follows the Pickwickians on their adventure throughout Britain. These characters portray goodness in human nature and offer a striking contrast to the falsities they encounter.

The Pickwick Papers offers a view into Dickens’ growth as an author. His future works become darker, oftentimes using innocent characters beat down by a corrupt society to portray the horrors of Victorian England. As his first novel, Pickwick Papers uses a friendlier narration and focuses more on the pleasurable, fun parts of life. Instead of focusing on the dismal parts of Victorian England, he contrasts these with the joyful aspects of life.

Charles John Huffam Dickens: 7 February 1812 – 9 June 1870, was an English writer and social critic. He created some of the world’s best-known fictional characters and is regarded by many as the greatest novelist of the Victorian era. His works enjoyed unprecedented popularity during his lifetime and, by the 20th century, critics and scholars had recognised him as a literary genius. His novels and short stories are widely read today.

Born in Portsmouth, Dickens left school at the age of 12 to work in a boot-blacking factory when his father was incarcerated in a debtors’ prison. After three years he returned to school, before he began his literary career as a journalist. Dickens edited a weekly journal for 20 years, wrote 15 novels, five novellas, hundreds of short stories and non-fiction articles, lectured and performed readings extensively, was an indefatigable letter writer, and campaigned vigorously for children’s rights, for education, and for other social reforms.

Dickens’s literary success began with the 1836 serial publication of The Pickwick Papers, a publishing phenomenon—thanks largely to the introduction of the character Sam Weller in the fourth episode—that sparked Pickwick merchandise and spin-offs. Within a few years Dickens had become an international literary celebrity, famous for his humour, satire and keen observation of character and society. His novels, most of them published in monthly or weekly instalments, pioneered the serial publication of narrative fiction, which became the dominant Victorian mode for novel publication. Cliff-hanger endings in his serial publications kept readers in suspense. The instalment format allowed Dickens to evaluate his audience’s reaction, and he often modified his plot and character development based on such feedback. For example, when his wife’s chiropodist expressed distress at the way Miss Mowcher in David Copperfield seemed to reflect her own disabilities, Dickens improved the character with positive features. His plots were carefully constructed and he often wove elements from topical events into his narratives. Masses of the illiterate poor would individually pay a halfpenny to have each new monthly episode read to them, opening and inspiring a new class of readers.

His 1843 novella A Christmas Carol remains especially popular and continues to inspire adaptations in every artistic genre. Oliver Twist and Great Expectations are also frequently adapted and, like many of his novels, evoke images of early Victorian London. His 1859 novel A Tale of Two Cities (set in London and Paris) is his best-known work of historical fiction. The most famous celebrity of his era, he undertook, in response to public demand, a series of public reading tours in the later part of his career. The term Dickensian is used to describe something that is reminiscent of Dickens and his writings, such as poor social or working conditions, or comically repulsive characters.