The Pickwick Papers

The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club (commonly known as The Pickwick Papers) is the first novel published by Charles Dickens. The Posthumous Papers Of The Pickwick Club catapulted the 24-year-old author to immediate fame. Readers were captivated by the adventures of the poet Snodgrass, the lover Tupman, the sportsman Winkle &, above all, by that quintessentially English Quixote, Mr. Pickwick, & his cockney Sancho Panza, Sam Weller. From the hallowed turf of Dingley Dell Cricket Club to the unholy fracas of the Eatanswill election, via the Fleet debtor’s prison, characters & incidents sprang to life from Dickens’s pen, to form an enduringly popular work of ebullient humor & literary invention

The novel was published in 19 issues over 20 months by Chapman and Hall, London in 1836. 

After the publication the widow of illustrator Robert Seymour claimed that the idea for the novel was originally her husband's; however, in his preface to the 1867 edition, Dickens strenuously denied any specific input, writing that "Mr. Seymour never originated or suggested an incident, a phrase, or a word, to be found in the book.

In 1882 London published Curtis Guild released an extra-illustrated edition of The Pickwick Papers in two volumes.  They featured elaborate gilt tooling to spine in six compartments within raised gilt bands, elaborate gilt ruling to the front and rear panels, inner dentelles, silk endpapers.

Chapman and Hall, London released as a limited edition of 250 with gilt-stamped vellum boards and gilt topstains in 1910.