The Pickwick Papers, Charles Dickens's first novel (serialized 1836–1837), follows the amiable Mr. Samuel Pickwick and his fellow Pickwick Club members—Tupman, Snodgrass, and Winkle—as they journey through the English countryside, recording their comic misadventures. Accompanied by his witty cockney servant Sam Weller, Pickwick encounters eccentrics such as the roguish Mr. Jingle, faces a breach-of-promise lawsuit brought by his landlady Mrs. Bardell, and endures imprisonment in the Fleet Prison. Episodic and humorous, the novel gradually gains emotional depth, celebrating kindness, friendship, and human benevolence while gently satirizing Victorian society, and it established Dickens's reputation as a major comic writer.
