Pickwick Papers

Charles Dickens’s serials are generally too disjointed to hold together as great novels, but the episodic plot structure of The Pickwick Papers makes it one of his better collections. Samuel Pickwick leads a correspondence society in which its members recount their travels and adventures to a variety of areas in and around London. The stories have a breezy exuberance and some of Dickens’s most memorable characters, especially Samuel Pickwick (who evolves from a merely humorous figure initially into one of great generosity) and Sam Weller (whose appearance in Pickwick IV was one of the great turning points in not just the serial but in Dickens’s career).