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43 DICKENS, Charles. The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club. London: Chapman & Hall, 1836–37 DICKENS’S FIRST NOVEL, IN ITS NOTORIOUSLY COMPLEX ORIGINAL PART ISSUE First edition, in the original monthly parts, of Dickens’s first novel, and that which established his fame, transforming him from an almost unknown young journalist when the first part was issued, to a household name by the final. This set, gathered at
the height of Pickwick mania in the 1930s, is a mixed issue, as almost always, with a substantial number of the later parts in the earliest issues. Pickwick in parts has always been a high spot in book collecting. In the 1930s, when this set was gathered, the novel was esteemed as “one of the three or four most remarkable books in the whole course of English literature” ( Centenary Bibliography of the Pickwick Papers , 1936, p. 1). Though that status has since diminished, the novel in its original state of issue, in the 19 fragile parts, remains a much-desired component of any serious collection of Dickens, and of 19th-century literature more broadly.
The publication history of the novel is notoriously complex. The early parts sold poorly and only a few hundred copies of each were issued on first publication. With the introduction of the character Sam Weller in part 4, the novel rapidly became very popular. Using the same plates and stereos with only minor alterations, the publisher printed further issues of the earlier parts to meet demand, and increased the print run of the new parts as they came out. The final number was issued in 29,000 copies ( Prime Pickwick , p. 3). Even after the completion of the novel in parts, and its issue as a single volume in book
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