CHARLES DICKENS THE PICKWICK PAPERS (ILLUSTRATED)
The Pickwick Papers
The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club
Charles Dickens
With an afterword by Ned Halley
With illustrations by R.W. Buss and ‘Phiz’ (Hablot Knight Browne)
The Pickwick Papers is Charles Dickens’s first novel, and his comic masterpiece. We are introduced not just to one of the greatest writers in the English language but to some of fiction’s most endearing and memorable characters, starting with the ‘illustrious, immortal and colossal-minded’ Samuel Pickwick himself. It is a rollicking tour de force through an England on the brink of the Victorian era. Reform of government, justice and commercial life are imminent, as are rail travel, social convulsion and the death of deference, but Pickwick sails through on a tide of delirious adventure, fortifying us for the future – whatever it throws at us.
The Collector’s Library restores traditional visual and tactile pleasures to the joy of reading.
Each book is designed to appeal to the book-lover; in every case the type is re-set, illustrations, where appropriate, are selected from sources as close to the period of the book as possible, and the books are printed on high-quality paper, section-sewn and bound in real cloth. Each book has endpapers, a satin ribbon marker, head and tailbands and gilt edges. They represent the marriage of great literature to high aesthetic and craft standards, using the technology of the 21st century to produce something classic and at the same time unmistakeably modern.
Their handy size means that they can be slipped into the pocket, handbag or briefcase, and their robust manufacture makes them ideal travelling companions as well as comfortable bedside reads at very affordable prices.
‘I cannot imagine a more heavenly present; they are so beautifully produced and illustrated.’
Jilly Cooper, novelist
‘It is delicious to see gilt edges again. ... They are far more pocket-sized than any paperback.’
Joanna Trollope, novelist
