The larger-than-life Mr Pickwick, a benevolent and well-to-do gentleman, travels about the country righting wrongs and occasionally - but unintentionally -- wreaking havoc.

Accompanying him is Sam Weller, Mr Pickwick's faithful valet, and crossing paths with the Pickwickians is Alfred Jingle, a comic villain, whose misadventures repeatedly land the group in trouble.

The Pickwick Papers began as a series of tales to accompany illustrations by caricaturist Robert Seymour, but soon took on a life of their own to become one of Dickens's best-loved comic stories.