Book review: Death and Mr Pickwick - Dickens stole Pickwick concept
Stephen Jarvis, in this brilliant debut novel, presents evidence as to why Charles Dickens' 'Pickwick Papers' should be called 'the greatest literary hoax in history'
Perhaps by reminding you that - the greatest phenomenon in literary history and, during its first century, the world's best-known book after the Bible - was an equally big book by another rookie novelist named Charles Dickens?
If, that is, Dickens really deserves being remembered as the creator of the legendary Samuel Pickwick, whose famous image - round and bespectacled head, big belly, black gaiters - is even recognised by those who have never read the book describing his picaresque travels around England.
Calling Dickens' authorial claim "the greatest literary hoax in history", Jarvis weaves a staggering amount of research into a gripping, fictionalised presentation of his emphatically non-fictional argument: Dickens stole both the concept as well as various scenes and characters in "Pickwick" - including the fat man himself and his three companions - from Robert Seymour, the caricaturist who illustrated the serialised novel's first two issues.
When the young and relatively unknown Dickens was approached about providing text to accompany Seymour's illustrations, Seymour was already famous, drawing every third political caricature in Britain, along with hundreds of illustrations satirising everything from Shakespeare to sporting life.
Three days after the only known meeting of Seymour and Dickens - between publication of the first and second parts of in 1836 - Seymour shot and killed himself.
