The Pickwick Papers — printed and engraved title-pages for the November 1837 volume edition of Charles Dickens's The Pickwick Papers, first published in serial as The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club, containing a Faithful Record of the Perambulations, Perils, Travels, Adventures and Sporting Transactions of the Corresponding Members, edited by Boz from April 1836. Print and steel-engraving, 12 cm high by 9.6 cm wide, vignetted, inclusive of title, place, and publisher. In the November 1837 serial illustration Tony Weller ejects Mr. Stiggins the usually jolly coachman, a fast favourite with serial readers, throws the hypocritical dissenting minister Mr. Stiggins out of his wife's Surrey public house, The Marquis of Granby, and gives him as much liquid as he can possibly swallow from the horse-trough out front. This version of the plate was issued by Chapman and Hall as one of four plates for the final, "double" number (Parts 19 and 20), and was intended to serve as the engraved title for collectors of the serial parts.
Scanned image and text by Philip V. Allingham. [You may use this image without prior permission for any scholarly or educational purpose as long as you (1) credit the person who scanned the image and (2) link your document to this URL.]
Commentary
The long title, used on the covers of the monthly wrappers, may have been deemed too verbose for the title-page of the November 1837 volume edition. The monthly wrapper's title reads: "The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club, containing a Faithful Record of the Perambulations, Perils, Travels, Adventures and Sporting Transactions of the Corresponding Members, edited by Boz" (April 1836 onward). The part of the serial's title describing "Sporting Transactions" probably reflects the original conception of artist Robert Seymour (1798?-1836), who fancied a series sporting plates but ultimately agreed to a loose, picaresque narrative involving urbanites ("Cockneys") making fools of themselves as they went in for field sports. The early title may also subtly suggest that Chapman and Hall had commissioned Dickens merely to write up a letterpress for a series of comic engravings which would appear at the rate of four per month. The short or revised title, The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club, more clearly establishes the retrospective nature of the narrative, which Dickens sets almost a full decade before the publication date. Even before the volume appeared, the serial numbers had been reviewed — and praised — by such eminent critics as Thomas Babington Macaulay (1836), John Forster (2 July 1837), and Edgar Allen Poe (September 1837). George Henry Lewes reviewed the volume in the National Magazine for December 1837.
Related Materials
- Monthly Wrapper (April 1836)
- Robert Seymour's Monthly Plates (April-May 1836)
- Phiz's Monthly Plates (July 1836 onward)
- R. W. Buss's Monthly Plates (June 1836)
References
Bentley, Nicolas, Michael Slater, and Nina Burgis. The Dickens Index. New York and Oxford: Oxford U. P., 1990.
Churchill, R. C. "The Pickwick Papers." A Bibliography of Dickensian Criticism 1836-1975. London and Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1975. Pp. 41-45.
Dickens, Charles. "Pickwick Papers (1836-37). Illustrated by Robert Seymour and Hablot Knight Browne. London: Chapman & Hall, November 1837.
Last modified 18 November 2019