Customer Reviews

The Pickwick Papers (Clarendon Dickens)

5 star:		(47)
4 star:		(12)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

This edition (ASIN B002RKSXJQ) is poorly formatted. There is a wide left margin throughout, and the amusingly long chapter titles get progressively smaller every few lines.

I was willing to put up with it until I came to the scene in the parlor at Manor Farm, which appears to be missing some text. Either that, or Dickens is more post-modern than I thought, trailing off (with no punctuation) in the middle of a sentence.

Amazon needs to do some quality control on this edition, and remove it from the store. There are plenty of others, why waste our time by listing inferior product?

Charles Dickens wrote The Pickwick Papers in his early 20s, but the writing is first rate and as witty as any seasoned author could have done in his place! Like many of Dickens's works, Pickwick was published in monthly installments, or "numbers" as they were called then. Although Dickens originally intended to end the story at the twentieth number, the popularity of the series (and the resultant income) convinced Dickens to double the length to forty numbers. The end result is a large offering that'll take you a while to get through (~750 pages in the excellent Penguin edition, which I read).

Despite its length, Pickwick never tries your patience. It's delightfully humorous from beginning to end. Samuel Pickwick is the bumbling, middle-aged, wealthy namesake of this novel. He's the leader of a small group of single men that gets into all sorts of mischief, both physical and social. Booze is rampant. Apparently liquor back then was much more a part of daily life than today; everywhere these guys go they party and get drunk. They get into trouble with the law, women, unsavory characters, and more.

Characterization is superb. This is one of the few novels I've read for which I can actually say that I got to know the characters. In most books I've read, the characters remain two-dimensional and the plot is what carries the story. In Pickwick, the *characters* are the essence of the story and the novel wouldn't be memorable at all if a lesser author were attempting to breathe life into these people.

The Penguin edition includes a decent collection of endnotes to help explain unfamiliar portions of the text. Nevertheless, there were still quite a few words and concepts peculiar to early 19th century England that I didn't grasp. This edition also has maps of southern England and a key to the specific locations that the Pickwickians visit. In addition, two appendices reprint some of the announcements and prefaces that Dickens wrote in relation to the work.

Highly recommended, particularly if you enjoy classic literature! Dickens's later works overshadow this gem due to their maturity, but Pickwick beats them all in enthusiasm, humor, and wit.

I have absolutely no doubts whatsoever that Charles Dickens, if he lived today, would still classify as an author's author. He's a master of all the things that make for great writing and storytelling. Dickens has an ear for dialogue most authors would kill their own mothers to possess. He also is a master of creating vivid scenery, another sign of excellence essential to great writing and one which many authors lack. Finally, but not least in importance, Dickens knows character development. He REALLY knows how to develop intriguing characters, to the point where many of his books spawned figures that have become literary archetypes. Not bad for a guy who grew up in extremely adverse circumstances. He even spent some time in a factory sticking labels on bottles after his father's imprisonment for debt. Most people wouldn't recover from such poverty, but Dickens did. He went on to a successful career in journalism before settling down as an author of serial novels. This format, which allowed Dickens to write and release his stories piecemeal, made him a great success with the public. The anticipation for the latest chapter or two of his stories often led to near riots. Not many writers can duplicate this feat today.

"The Pickwick Papers" is one of Dickens's earliest works, written when the author was a mere twenty-four years old. You wouldn't know his age by reading the story, though. "Pickwick" is a work that delivers healthy doses of sophisticated humor, keen observations on pressing social issues, romance, and a mature knowledge of human behavior. It's of course fiction, although Dickens presents the story as a true series of events documented by the "Pickwick Club," a social organization founded by retired businessman and all around merry fellow Samuel Pickwick. In the 1820s, Pickwick and several friends embark on a series of journeys through Southern England, a journey that lasts for roughly two years. Ostensibly, the businessman and his fellows take the trips to learn more about their country. Instead, their travels turn into a series of often hilarious events mixed with a few serious scrapes. Pickwick must constantly save individuals from the machinations of one Alfred Jingle, an itinerant scalawag with a penchant for wooing women for their money. In between these adventures, our hero must contend with a lawsuit filed by a former female employee who thought he wanted to marry her, save his friends from numerous imbroglios involving members of the opposite sex, survive a stay in a debtor's prison, and live through a couple hundred other adventures both major and minor.

If I had to list one overarching theme I enjoyed most about "The Pickwick Papers," it's got to be the humor. This book is one of the funniest things I've read in ages. We're talking laugh out loud and laughing later when remembering scenes from the book funny. Much of the humor centers on Pickwick's manservant Sam Weller, a guy prone to uttering some of the most hilarious sayings you'll likely see in any book. Weller's father is even more amusing, and when father and son sit down to write a letter to a lovely young woman who's caught Sam's eye, well, prepare to hold your sides. Also worth a belly laugh or two is the chapter where Pickwick and his friends visit the town of Eatanswill in time to witness the results of a contentious local election. Dickens's observations about party politics and media manipulation are not only highly amusing, but also relevant to our own age. And who can forget the courtroom scenes where the lawyer makes Pickwick, this kindly old gentleman who wouldn't hurt a fly, look like an absolute monster? I could go on and on. If you read this book without cracking up, check your pulse because you're probably dead.

Another element of the book I enjoyed concerns Dickens's ability to write scenes that simply overflow with the joy of living. A lengthy chapter describing Pickwick's stay with some country friends over Christmas serves as an excellent example. The sheer bliss of this part of the book is infectious, as Dickens makes us marvel at the simple delight of spending a few days in the company of good friends, good food, and good entertainment. On the other hand, the author isn't above indulging in an activity he's become famous for, namely showing the reader the depths of human suffering. There is far less misery in "The Pickwick Papers" than there is in "Oliver Twist," to cite one example, but it's still here. The debtor's prison in which Pickwick stays for a time provides the author with a perfect forum for attacking England's tradition of imprisoning those unfortunate souls who cannot pay their creditors. I marvel at how Dickens can balance these two extremes in the space of a single novel. In this way, "The Pickwick Papers" manages to encompass life in both its good and bad aspects.

I read the Penguin Classics edition of "The Pickwick Papers," and I'm glad I did. The supplementary material is copious and helpful more often than not. I didn't care much for the introduction from Robert L. Patten, however, which I thought tried to read too much into the story. I did appreciate the footnotes that help explain the English geography, slang, and popular culture references found throughout the story. Further material provides information on the three illustrators who worked on the story, biographical details of Dickens's life, and even maps tracing Pickwick's myriad travels through the English countryside. Reading "The Pickwick Papers" makes me realize that I've neglected this author's works for far too long. I can't praise this book enough; it's that entertaining and that good. Give it a go as soon as possible!

It's free - that's the major plus of this edition. As noted earlier, there are some irritating formatting issues, such as the lack of consistency in chapter headings. However, far worse is that this edition omits anything that isn't pure text, such as a key illustration and lines of song/poetry. It's still a funny book and worth a read, but keep in mind you'll be missing some jokes just because they were left out by the editor.

The Pickwick Papers was actually Charles Dickens' first novel, and it was first published in a serialized manner - appearing as 19 booklets, published over 20 months, and costing two shillings. The book tells the story of Samuel Pickwick and his three associates as they amble rather randomly across early Victorian England. During their peregrinations, they encounter the troubles of travel, deceit, sports, business, and even a stay in debtors' prison.

Overall, I found the story (or should I say, "stories?") to be very funny - lighthearted and whimsical. It is really a very interesting and irreverent look at a world now long-lost. I definitely enjoyed this book and I definitely recommend it!

I don't think I've ever read a novel half as entertaining as The Pickwick Papers. I agree with the reviewer who said that it was as if Dickens had a million jokes that he wanted to get off of his chest. And such wonderful characters! The last part of the book though is more about Mr. Pickwick himself than about the club. He also becomes less of a doofus and more of a lovealbe and sympathetic character as the novel progresses. If you are ever down and feeling depressed then this is the book to read.Sam Weller is one of Dickens greatest characters, the book really comes into its own when he becomes Mr.Pickwicks servent.

Note: this novel is available for download from several sites because it is out of copyright. The Feedbooks site (a dot com) and the Project Gutenberg site (a dot org) come to mind.

The Pickwick Papers is Charles Dickens' first novel (originally serialized like his subsequent works) and one I heartily recommend to those who have never read him before. It is very funny at intervals but as the work progresses, it becomes less disjoint and the last twenty percent of it is magnificent.

The premise is that Mr. Pickwick, a slightly buffoonish man of science, sheltered by his wealth from many of the real ways of the world, convinces his eponymous Pickwickian Society to inculcate a new branch, to aid with the Society's endeavour of enriching scientific knowledge and other matters of grave importance (yet what the Society deems of grave importance, the reader probably would see as misguided self-importance and humorous bluster). This branch is to be comprised of Pickwick and his three devoted companions, the lady's man Tupman, the poetic Snodgrass, and the sporting Winkle. Together with Pickwick, they are to travel across England and report back to the Society any matters of scientific or social import via letters; whence the title The Pickwick Papers: a simple premise that sets up the novel for fun and misadventure from chapter two onwards.

In reality, the stout companions Pickwick, Tupman, Winkle, and Snodgrass, are rather less the lions of society and enlightenment than they believe, and their prowess in their respective "specialities" often lands them in the most awkward and humorous situations.

Initially, the novel seems disjointed. Each chapter is entertaining enough, but there are ever new characters, and literary devices to introduce mini-stories within the chapter, as when the hale fellows meet some odd stranger who has a creepy story to tell about the ghost of a gravedigger. The story is told from the perspective of the Pickwickians (society members) who receive letters from the companions of their adventures in the country. Part of the humour of the novel is the gullibility of Pickwick and friends: they report the wondrous stories of the crafty locals and conmen to the Society as if they were true, not noticing that often the tellers of tales are getting fat on free dinners and drunk on conviviality, all at the expense of Pickwick himself, of course.

Entertaining as the numerous humorous diversions in each chapter are, the story comes to a very solid conclusion after the half-way mark. Characters you thought might never be heard of again, are reintroduced with genius, and the whole lot eventually are entwined under remarkably astute circumstances: how Dickens managed this in a serialized novel is, no doubt, part of his genius.

I noticed that the bluster and tomfoolery of Pickwick especially, and friends, resolves by the end of the novel into a more serious tone: the characters have grown up considerably after having rubbed shoulders with the common man, so to speak, and having travelled along with them as the reader, one feels almost proud to have shared their eventual fortunes, wisdoms, and insights from the very beginning, when they were so obviously naive, and sheltered from the harsh realities of their society.

Dickens excels in his description of the privations and injustices suffered in debtors prisons in England, and the conditional blindness of Lady Justice in the legal system. At this late stage of the novel I was entirely captivated. This high gear kicks in during the final quarter, and is a somewhat unexpected turn of events from the preceding humorous and light-hearted, almost anecdotal, course of the serialized novel.

Dickens paints a fascinating picture of travelling by horse-drawn coaches in England, and the descriptions of the famous pubs (public houses) that served as bed-and-board for weary travellers of what can only be a very early public transport system, are historically accurate and entirely fascinating.

Chapter ten is rather important because that is when the singular character of Sam Weller is introduced. Sam becomes a companion man-servant and general odds-body to Pickwick and his companions, partly, one feels, out of pity, because the street-wise Sam realizes what easy targets Pickwick et al are for local conmen and free-loaders.

The growing companionship of Pickwick and the ever-loyal Sam is a memorable moment in literature and provides the backbone to the rest of the novel, and a very fine ending to everything. I was very much reminded of Frodo and Sam in Lord Of The Rings, in fact.

I cannot recommend this book enough. I only gave it four stars instead of five in the certain hope that Dickens wrote even better novels, which I will have to rate higher. If reading classical literature seems daunting to you, I have this advice: if you can make it past chapter one, then you only have to stick to it until chapter ten, when you will meet Sam Weller. From then on, the next milestone is the debtors prison part, where things get rather more serious, and the seemingly disparate novel draws powerfully and emotionally together. Dickens is a satirical genius, and he takes the mickey out of Victorian society and class bluster with skill that beggars description.

This is one for sentimental intellectuals, and lovers of language. An entirely brilliant début novel. I find the fact that it was originally serialized great fun, because each chapter is a far more meaty and satisfying read than most modern novels, where chapters are not that episodic. Reading Dickens is more like watching a television series, than a movie.

Pickwick Papers is a wonderful book, and no doubt much has been written about it in academic and literary circles. But from a layman's perspective, it is simply a fun read. One would almost think it the work of a great master approaching the end of a career, consciously deciding to lay down the heartache of Great Expectations or the martyrdom of A Tale of Two Cities to take a jovial and whimsical jaunt through the English language and the realm of imagination. Yet the bumbling and somehow delightful misadventures of the Pickwickians fall at the beginning of Dickens' career. Comic relief is offered well before Hard Times sets in.

Take an independently wealthy, magnanimous old fellow and surround him with a group of close friends. Send them together on a journey of desire to explore the world about them, meet new people, and experience the fullness of life, and you essentially have the plot of Pickwick Papers. The plethora of characters Dickens introduces along the way add considerable color to the narrative, not only because they come from such a vast array of backgrounds, but because they themselves are colorful in their own right:

The first and most obvious example might be that of Mr. Alfred Jingle, the loquacious vagabond rapscallion who rescues the Pickwickians from an altercation with a feisty coach driver. One of Mr. Pickwicks cohorts, Mr. Snodgrass, receives a blow to the eye during the incident, after which Mr. Jingle is pleased to suggest the most efficacious remedies: "Glasses round-brandy and water, hot and strong, and sweet, and plenty-eye damaged, sir? Waiter! Raw beef-steak for the gentleman's eye-nothing like raw beef-steak for a bruise, sir; cold lamp-post very good, but lamp-post inconvenient-damned odd, standing in the open street half an hour with your eye against a lamp-post-eh-very good-ha! ha!" While Pickwick reads the legend of Prince Bladud by candlelight, we find this description of King Hudibras: "A great many centuries since, there flourished, in great state, the famous and renowned Lud Hudibras, king of Britain. He was a mighty monarch. The earth shook when he walked-he was so very stout. His people basked in the light of his countenance-it was so red and glowing. He was, indeed, every inch a king. And there were a good many inches of him too, for although he was not very tall, he was a remarkable size round, and the inches that he wanted in height he made up in circumference." The young surgeon, Benjamin Allen, is described as "a coarse, stout, thick-set young man, with black hair cut rather short and a white face cut rather long [...] He presented altogether, rather a mildewy appearance, and emitted a fragrant odour of full-flavoured Cubas." Dickens notes that the casual visitor to the Insolvent Court "might suppose this place to be a temple dedicated to the Genius of Seediness" and whose vapors are "like those of a fungus pit." Seated in this luxuriant ambience, we find an attorney, Mr. Solomon Pell, who "was a fat, flabby pale man, in a surtout which looked green one minute and brown the next, with a velvet collar of the same chameleon tints. His forehead was narrow, his face wide, his head large, and his nose all on one side, as if Nature, indignant with the propensities she observed in him in his birth, had given it an angry tweak which it had never recovered." A final sample from a list of worthy characters too long to mention might be Mr. Smangle, the boisterous whiskered man whom Pickwick encounters in debtors prison: "This last man was an admirable specimen of a class of gentry which never can be seen in full perfection but in such places; they may be met with, in an imperfect state, occasionally about the stable-yards and public-houses; but they never attain their full bloom except in these hot-beds, which would almost seem to be considerately provided by the legislature for the sole purpose of rearing them [...] There was a rakish vagabond smartness and a kind of boastful rascality about the whole man that was worth a mine of gold."

The book itself is a goldmine full of textures, personas, venues, and idiosyncrasies of a bygone age. These are delight to behold, as the reader is thus invited to enjoy experience and descriptive beauty for their own sakes. Plot largely takes a backseat to the development of relationships, which can be seen as a myriad of subplots contributing to a never-ending story. Numerous vignettes which are incidental to the narrative add another level of richness, and it seems clear that Dickens offers them for an enjoyment all their own. There is something of "l'art pour l'art" throughout the whole work which expresses a love of language and a love of human nature. As Dickens might have summed it up, "All this was very snug and pleasant."

Having never read any Dickens before - and unaware this was his maiden effort - I was hooked from the first few pages. The benevolent Mr. Pickwick, with his faithful sidekicks, experiences Victorian England as a well-to-do citizen. While the bulk of this novel deals with the "softer" side of society, the hard-edged aspects of the era are nonetheless acknowledged. With memorable characters, marvelous misadventures, subtle comedic touches, and an occasional suprise around the corner, this novel holds it's own as a "classic." My only "Pickwick" regret was waiting this long (24 yrs. old) to read it. This book will undoubtedly serve as a springboard for ALL of Charles Dickens' works.

Pickwick and his entourage fumble their way through 18th century England.. it's a long book that sometimes seems longer because of the density of Dickens' prose. But it's also surprisingly fun and funny; you get to know the characters through their actions and the incidents they put in play.