In The Pickwick Papers (1837), members of the eponymous club recreate the ludicrous follies of nineteenth century England. Yet beneath the grotesqueries they chronicle runs a counterpoint of debtors' prisons, corruption and unreformed elections. With characteristic compassion and caustic satire, Dickens confronts the darker side of these charming anecdotes, in the novel that vaulted him from journalistic obscurity to literary pre-eminence.
