The Pickwick Papers

Few first novels have created as much popular excitement as The Pickwick Papersamp;mdash;a comic masterpiece that catapulted its 24-year-old author to immediate fame.

Listeners were captivated by the adventures of the poet Snodgrass, the lover Tupman, the sportsman Winkle amp;, above all, by that quintessentially English Quixote, Mr Pickwick, amp; 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 debtors prison, characters amp; incidents sprang to life from Dickens' pen, to form an enduringly popular work of ebullient humour amp; literary invention.