There are dark shadows on the earth, but its lights are stronger in the contrast.'

The brightest light of the Pickwick Club is its founder member and illustrious leader, Samuel Pickwick. He is joined by his three friends and fellow club members: the poetic Augustus Snodgrass, the romantic Tracy Tupman, and the sporting Nathaniel Winkle. Their mission is to travel the country in search of interesting scenes and characters and to report back the results of their observations.

What follows is a series of adventures and misadventures, encounters and intrigues which show the dazzling brilliancy of Charles Dickens' comic invention with regard to character and situation. Dickens' friend and biographer, John Forster, praised the novel for its 'genial and irrepressible enjoyment, affectionate heartiness of tone, unrestrained exuberance of mirth... its wonderful freshness and its unflagging animal spirits.'

'The Pickwick Papers' (also known as 'The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club') was Charles Dickens's first novel. Following his success with 'Sketches by Boz' published in 1836, Dickens was asked by the publisher Chapman & Hall to supply descriptions to explain a series of comic "cockney sporting plates" by illustrator Robert Seymour, and to connect them into a novel. Published in 19 issues over 20 months, 'The Pickwick Papers' became a publishing phenomenon, popularising serialised fiction and cliffhanger endings.