![]() ![]() But if you read my novel, you will soon realize that the story of Pickwick’s creation says a great deal about the making of the modern world, and you may be led to read The Pickwick Papers afterwards. The backstory of Pickwick cried out to be turned into a novel itself – so that’s what I did! Do you need to have read The Pickwick Papers before reading Death and Mr Pickwick? No, not all. The Pickwick Papers also has, in my view, the greatest backstory of any work of fiction: a backstory of deep tragedy set against colossal triumph, with an extraordinary cast of characters – from a mad alcoholic clown to a wine-merchant with a pet vulture – whose lives are all linked to The Pickwick Papers. Charles Dickens’s first novel The Pickwick Papers isn’t widely read these days, but things used to be very different: it was the first literary blockbuster and indeed for almost a century it was the most famous novel in the world. Read it, and you may feel the urge to go to places connected to the novel, to eat and drink there, collect souvenirs, and take a picture. I now believe I have created something else: what might be called ‘the trail novel’. Six months ago, if you had asked me about my novel Death and Mr Pickwick, I would probably have said: It is about the dawning of the age of global celebrity and its main characters are Charles Dickens and the artist Robert Seymour. ![]()
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