The Pickwick Papers

Zusatztext “No essay in fiction ever gave more incontestable assurance of genius. . . . Never! perhaps! was satire so large-hearted and so entertaining.”—George Gissing Informationen zum Autor Charles Dickens (1812–1870) was born at Landport! near Portsmouth! England. The second of eight children in a family often plagued by debt! Dickens at ten saw his father arrested and confined in the Marshalsea! a debtors’ prison in London! and although a small boy! he was placed in a blacking factory where he worked at labeling bottles! visiting John Dickens on Sundays. On his father’s release! Charles returned to school! taught himself shorthand! and at sixteen became a paramilitary reporter. At twenty-four! his career took off with the publication of Sketches by Boz ! which was followed by The Pickwick Papers the next year. As a novelist and magazine editor! he had a long run of serialized successes! including Oliver Twist ! Great Expectations ! and A Tale of Two Cities . Even as ill health plagued him at the end of his life! he continued his popular dramatic readings from his fiction to an adoring public! which included Queen Victoria. He died at Gads Hill! his home in Kent! leaving his final manuscript! The Mystery of Edwin Drood! unfinished.   Jasper Fforde worked in the film industry for nineteen years! where his varied career included the role of “focus puller” on films such as Goldeneye and The Mask of Zorro. After he had received seventy-six rejection letters from publishers! his first novel! The Eyre Affair ! was published in 2001 and became an international bestselling phenomenon. He has published six sequels! as well as multiple volumes in the Nursery Crime! Shades of Grey! and Last Dragonslayer series . Fforde lives and writes in Wales. CHAPTER I The Pickwickians. The first ray of light which illumines the gloom, and converts into a dazzling brilliancy that obscurity in which the earlier history of the public career of the immortal Pickwick would appear to be involved, is derived from the perusal of the following entry in the Transactions of the Pickwick Club, which the editor of these papers feels the highest pleasure in laying before his readers, as a proof of the careful attention, indefatigable assiduity, and nice discrimination, with which his search among the multifarious documents confided to him has been conducted. "May 12, 1827. Joseph Smiggers, Esq., P.V.P.M.P.C.,* presiding. The following resolutions unanimously agreed to:- "That this Association has heard read, with feelings of unmingled satisfaction, and unqualified approval, the paper communicated by Samuel Pickwick, Esq., G.C.M.P.C.,Ý entitled ´Speculations on the Source of the Hampstead Ponds, with some Observations on the Theory of Tittlebats;´ and that this Association does hereby return its warmest thanks to the said Samuel Pickwick, Esq., G.C.M.P.C., for the same. "That while this Association is deeply sensible of the advantages which must accrue to the cause of science from the production to which they have just adverted,-no less than from the unwearied researches of Samuel Pickwick, Esq., G.C.M.P.C., in Hornsey, Highgate, Brixton, and Camberwell,-they cannot but entertain a lively sense of the inestimable benefits which must inevitably result from carrying the speculations of that learned man into a wider field, from extending his travels, and consequently enlarging his sphere of observation, to the advancement of knowledge, and the diffusion of learning. "That, with the view just mentioned, this Association has taken into its serious consideration a proposal, emanating from the aforesaid Samuel Pickwick, Esq., G.C.M.P.C., and three other Pickwickians hereinafter named, for forming a new branch of United Pickwickians, under the title of The Corresponding Society of the Pickwick Club...

Dettagli sul prodotto

• Autori: Charles Dickens
• Con la collaborazione di: Jasper Fforde (Postfazione)
• Editore: Signet USA
• Lingue: Inglese
• Formato: Tascabile
• Pubblicazione: 15.01.2004
• EAN: 9780451529381
• ISBN: 978-0-451-52938-1
• Dimensioni: 107 mm x 175 mm x 35 mm
• Categoria: Narrativa > Romanzi