“To wander into Pickwick is to wander into a room of wholly recognizable characters—a Dickens nursery, if you will, with the characters we would meet over the years appearing as embryonic personae, much as an artist sketches ideas for inclusion into a painting at a later date. Pickwick is defined not by its plot but by the extraordinary depth of its characters.” Jasper Fforde, New York Times bestselling author
Description
When a twenty-four-year-old writer named Charles Dickens was asked to write a serialized story about English country life, no one anticipated that he was about to become one of the most famous authors of all time. The Pickwick Papers, as it came to be called, enchanted readers with its lively humor and delightfully drawn characters. The members of the Pickwick Club, presided over by the kindly old Mr. Samuel Pickwick, Esquire, agree to make a series of separate journeys into the English countryside and report back to the other club members on their adventures and observations, resulting in an abundance of entertaining anecdotes. When The Pickwick Papers was finally released as a complete novel, it became the first real publishing phenomenon, inspiring bootleg copies, theatrical performances, and merchandise based on the popular characters.
Praise
“To wander into Pickwick is to wander into a room of wholly recognizable characters—a Dickens nursery, if you will, with the characters we would meet over the years appearing as embryonic personae, much as an artist sketches ideas for inclusion into a painting at a later date. Pickwick is defined not by its plot but by the extraordinary depth of its characters.” Jasper Fforde, New York Times bestselling author
“A supreme masterpiece…The great example of everything that made Dickens great.” G. K. Chesterton
“No essay in fiction ever gave more incontestable assurance of genius…Never, perhaps, was satire so large-hearted and so entertaining.” George Gissing
“Charles Dickens’…comic masterpiece [is] some 750 pages long. Fear not, gentle listener, you will never be bored. The madcap adventures of Samuel Pickwick, wealthy retired businessman with a gigantic brain, and his three young friends, Tupman, Winkle, and Snodgrass, poke fun at the law, religion, debtors’ prisons, romance, the medical profession, dueling, con men, local elections, the media, a lawsuit for breach of promise, and other difficulties too numerous to mention…Through it all, Pickwick’s virtue and naïvete shine, a beacon to his club members and the many friends he makes along the way. Many anecdotes told by those many friends let Dickens flex his literary muscles. He writes scenes of tender love, death scenes to make you weep, grinding poverty, soul-blighting prisons but balances all with wit and uproarious humor. Dickens’ masterwork is narrated by the incomparable Simon Prebble…He gives the novel the full-voiced treatment, with accents and fluttery females given to hysterics. Highly recommended.” SoundCommentary.com (starred review)
Details
| Language | English |
|---|---|
| Release Day | Dec 13, 2009 |
| Release Date | December 14, 2009 |
| Release Date Machine | 1260748800 |
| Imprint | Blackstone Publishing |
| Provider | Craig Black |
| Categories | Literature & Fiction, Genre Fiction, Classics, Literary Fiction, Classics, Evergreen Classics, Evergreen Classics, Classics, Fiction - All, Fiction - Adult |
Author Bio
Charles Dickens (1812–1870) was born in Landport, Portsmouth, England, the second of eight children in a family continually plagued by debt. A legacy brought release from the nightmare of debtors’ prison and child labor and afforded him a few years of formal schooling. He worked as an attorney’s clerk and newspaper reporter until his early writings brought him the amazing success that was to be his for the remainder of his life. He was the most popular English novelist of the Victorian era, and he remains popular, responsible for some of English literature’s most iconic characters.
Narrator Bio
Simon Prebble, a British-born performer, is a stage and television actor and veteran narrator of some three hundred audiobooks. As one of AudioFile’s Golden Voices, he has received thirty-seven Earphones Awards and won the prestigious Audie in 2010. He lives in New York.
Overview
When a twenty-four-year-old writer named Charles Dickens was asked to write a serialized story about English country life, no one anticipated that he was about to become one of the most famous authors of all time. The Pickwick Papers, as it came to be called, enchanted readers with its lively humor and delightfully drawn characters. The members of the Pickwick Club, presided over by the kindly old Mr. Samuel Pickwick, Esquire, agree to make a series of separate journeys into the English countryside and report back to the other club members on their adventures and observations, resulting in an abundance of entertaining anecdotes. When The Pickwick Papers was finally released as a complete novel, it became the first real publishing phenomenon, inspiring bootleg copies, theatrical performances, and merchandise based on the popular characters.
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