Pickwick Papers

Rating:
Summary: How I love this book!
Review: This actually happens to be my very favourite Dickens, and that's saying a lot since I love all his work so much. The book is a series of sketches that were published in serial form like so much of Dickens work when he first started publishing. These sketches were written by Dickens as an accompaniment to various caricatures done by a popular artist. The main character in the book is Mr. Pickwick and he is a naïve, generous, lovable old gentleman who is the self-appointed head of the Pickwick Club. Dickens characters are truly wonderful in this book and that is why I love it so much. The book is funny and charming. These sketches cover the whole gamut of human emotions, and we see the inevitable Dickens' theories behind them, but that doesn't take away from their charm. I can say with no hesitation that this was the book that I read that really turned me onto Dickens, and after reading this, I had to read the rest of his work. Definitely a "desert island" book for me.

Rating:
Summary: The first Dickens and a very comical one
Review: This is Dickens first work , and one of his most comical. His depiction of what for him is a typically eccentric gathering of English characters is satirically brilliant and warmly comic at once. This is the stage where Dickens seems to have warmth for a good share of his characters, and even the ridicule does not seem as bitter as it will later on become. I could not really follow the plot if there is one but recommend reading this in whatever pages the reader happens to find himself enjoying.