Published serially in 1836–1837, The Pickwick Papers was Dickens' first novel and 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. From the grim depiction of Fleet Prison to the exuberant account of the cricket match at Dingley Dell, the tales of the immortal Pickwick Club offer memorable scenes of nineteenth-century England. Readers were captivated by the adventures of the poet Snodgrass, the lover Tupman, the sportsman Winkle ampersand, 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 ampersand incidents sprang to life from Dickens's pen, to form an enduringly popular work of ebullient humour and literary invention.
