The Pickwick Papers

by Dickens, Charles; Kinsley, James

• ISBN13: 9780192834577
• ISBN10: 0192834576
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 1998-12-03
• Publisher: Oxford University Press

Summary

Charles Dickens's satirical masterpiece, "The Pickwick Papers," catapulted the young writer into literary fame when it was first serialized in 1836-37. It recounts the rollicking adventures of the members of the Pickwick Club as they travel about England getting into all sorts of mischief. Laugh-out-loud funny and endlessly entertaining, the book also reveals Dickens's burgeoning interest in the parliamentary system, lawyers, the Poor Laws, and the ills of debtors' prisons. As G. K. Chesterton noted, "Before ÝDickens¨ wrote a single real story, he had a kind of vision . . . a map full of fantastic towns, thundering coaches, clamorous market-places, uproarious inns, strange and swaggering figures. That vision was Pickwick." "From the Trade Paperback edition."

Table of Contents

EXTRA ILLUSTRATIONS	vi	(1)
INTRODUCTION	vii	(10)
NOTE ON THE TEXT	xvii	(1)
A CHRONOLOGY OF CHARLES DICKENS	xviii	(4)
DEDICATION	xxii	(2)
PREFACE	xxiv	(2)
CONTENTS	xxvi	(6)
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS	xxxii
THE PICKWICK PAPERS	1	(719)
APPENDIX A: DICKENS'S ADDRESS FROM PUBLISHERS' ADVERTISEMENT, 26 MARCH 1836	720	(2)
APPENDIX B: PREFACE TO THE CHARLES DICKENS EDITION, 1867	722	(4)
EXPLANATORY NOTES	726	(15)
FURTHER READING	741