The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club, better known as The Pickwick Papers published serially in 1836–37, is the first novel by Charles Dickens. Few first novels have created as much popular excitement as The Pickwick Papers–a comic masterpiece that catapulted its 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 humour & literary invention. Its rousing success launched his lasting fame. This narrative of coach travel provides a vivid portrait of a world that was soon to vanish with the coming of the railroads.