The Pickwick Papers (简装)

The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club, better known as The Pickwick Papers, is the first novel by Charles Dickens. It was originally an idea by Robert Seymour, the illustrator, to which Dickens was asked to contribute as an up and coming writer following the success of Sketches by Boz, published in 1836. Dickens, supremely confident as ever, increasingly took over the unsuccessful monthly publication after Seymour had committed suicide. With the introduction of Sam Weller the book became the first real publishing phenomenon, with bootleg copies, theatrical performances, Sam Weller joke books and other merchandise. It was inspired by a town, Corsham. The name Pickwick is likely to have come from that of a nearby farm, Pickwick Lodge Farm. Pickwick is the part of Corsham which is on the A4, once the main road from London to Bristol.

Publisher Comments:

The high-spirited work of a young Dickens, The Pickwick Papers is the remarkable first novel that made its author famous and that has remained one of the best-known books in the world. In it the inimitable Samuel Pickwick, his well-fed body and unsinkable good spirits clad in tights and gaiters, sallies forth through the noisy streets of London and into the colorful country inns of rural England for a series of sparkling encounters with love and misadventure. From the wit of cockney bootblack Sam Weller to the unforgettable Fat Boy and rascals like the amorous Mr. Jingle and the unscrupulous lawyers Dodson and Fogg, The Pickwick Papers reels with joyous fantasy, infectious good humor, and a touch of the macabre—a classic work that G. K. Chesterton called “the great example of everything that made Dickens greata�|[a] supreme masterpiece.”

Synopsis:

This novel, written when Dickens was only 25 years old, immediately brought him immense popularity. Presenting a host of now-classic characters in a series of adventures, it displays the richness of his skills of characterization and description.

From Audiofile

New Millennium presents the distinguished Academy Award winner Paul Scofield interpreting abridgments of the novels and stories of Charles Dickens. These are excellent readings, sonorous and compelling. However, they lack the verve and character of the old Victorian qualities that have been so wonderfully captured on cassette by Martin Jarvis and Miriam Margolyes, among others. And while few authors benefit more from pruning than the paid-by-the-word Dickens, some of these cuttings are far too drastic. In addition, hurried post-production is evident in numerous audible edits, frequent mouth noises, and occasional overlapping of announcer and narrator.

About the Author

Charles Dickens was born in a little house in Landport, Portsea, England, on February 7, 1812. The second of eight children, he grew up in a family frequently beset by financial insecurity. At age eleven, Dickens was taken out of school and sent to work in London backing warehouse, where his job was to paste labels on bottles for six shillings a week. His father John Dickens, was a warmhearted but improvident man. When he was condemned the Marshela Prison for unpaid debts, he unwisely agreed that Charles should stay in lodgings and continue working while the rest of the family joined him in jail. This three-month separation caused Charles much pain; his experiences as a child alone in a huge city–cold, isolated with barely enough to eat–haunted him for the rest of his life.

When the family fortunes improved, Charles went back to school, after which he became an office boy, a freelance reporter and finally an author. With Pickwick Papers (1836-7) he achieved immediate fame; in a few years he was easily the post popular and respected writer of his time. It has been estimated that one out of every ten persons in Victorian England was a Dickens reader. Oliver Twist (1837), Nicholas Nickleby (1838-9) and The Old Curiosity Shop (1840-41) were huge successes. Martin Chuzzlewit (1843-4) was less so, but Dickens followed it with his unforgettable, A Christmas Carol (1843), Bleak House (1852-3), Hard Times (1854) and Little Dorrit (1855-7) reveal his deepening concern for the injustices of British Society. A Tale of Two Cities (1859), Great Expectations (1860-1) and Our Mutual Friend (1864-5) complete his major works.

Dickens’s marriage to Catherine Hoggarth produced ten children but ended in separation in 1858. In that year he began a series of exhausting public readings; his health gradually declined. After putting in a full day’s work at his home at Gads Hill, Kent on June 8, 1870, Dickens suffered a stroke, and he died the following day.

Book Dimension
Height (mm) 178 　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　Width (mm) 108