Pickwick Papers to The Old Curiosity Shop

Abstract

Moving from the Sketches to Pickwick Papers,1 Dickens’ first attempt at an extended work of fiction, is moving into another world. Nowhere is this clearer than in the young author’s use of language, despite the continued presence — above all in the authorial voices — of some of the negative aspects so apparent in the former book. That we gain such an impression is above all due to the marvel which is the actual speech of so many of the characters, and the resulting comic gusto of one richly inspired scene after another. It is these scenes, so completely dominating the book, that truly make it the (admittedly uneven) masterpiece it is.