In this classic social commentary from Dickens Mr. Samuel Pickwick retired business man and confirmed bachelor is determined that after a quiet life of enterprise the time has come to go out into the world. Together with the other members of the Pickwick Club: Tracy Tupman Augustus Snodgrass and Nathaniel Winkle the portly innocent embarks on a series of hilariously comic adventures. But can Pickwick retain his good will towards his fellow humans once he discovers the evils of the world? Charles Dickens s satirical masterpiece The Pickwick Papers catapulted the young writer into literary fame when it was first serialized in 1836-37. It recounts the rollicking adventures of the members of the Pickwick Club as they travel about England getting into all sorts of mischief. Laugh-out-loud funny and endlessly entertaining the book also reveals Dickens s burgeoning interest in the parliamentary system lawyers the Poor Laws and the ills of debtors prisons. As G. K. Chesterton noted Before [Dickens] wrote a single real story he had a kind of vision . . . a map full of fantastic towns thundering coaches clamorous market-places uproarious inns strange and swaggering figures. That vision was Pickwick.