The Pickwick Papers

Nov 24, 2025 8:11 AM

Author:Charles Dickens,Mark Wormald,Mark Wormald,Mark Wormald

The Pickwick Papers

'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

Reviews

A profoundly moving portrait of the region... Even now, years after I first read it, The Tree Where Man was Born seems imbued with precious vision

—— Jeremy Seal , Sunday Times

The skilled naturalist writer is almost as rare as the Congo peacock or the pygmy elephant - both subjects of the quest Peter Matthiessen conducts in African Silences. 'Skilled' is almost an insulting understatement for Matthiessen's sharply captivating prose

—— Gary Mead , Financial Times

The Tree Where Man Was Born is a truly magnificent book that will be just as important 50 years from now

—— Peter Farb

The Plato Papers can be enjoyed as a jeu d'esprit, but for students of Ackroyd it is something more... Richly revealing

—— New York Times

It is hard to see who could have done the job better than Schmidt

—— Times Literary Supplement

Schmidt gives us a chance to settle down with poets we wish we had known better

—— Daily Telegraph

A satisfying selection that reminds us that Lawrence didn't just write about animals, Betjeman wasn't always jolly, and Plath is more interesting for her collapsed perspectives than for her self-exposure

—— New Statesman

The selections from the greats are generous and well chosen

—— Guardian

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