Birth of a Notion

New Zealand Listener, Volume 13, Issue 318, 27 July 1945, Page 8

Birth of a Notion

HE curiously haphazard circumstances which gave birth to "Pickwick Papers" were set out partly in dialogue fashion in the BBC production heard from 1YA the other evening. The first idea of Pickwick was not the product

of any single mind. The original conception belonged to Seymour, the artist, who wanted a hack writer to provide the letterpress for a series of sketches of sporting characters. His publishers, Messrs. Chapman and Hall, possibly by little more than chance, selected Boz as a promising young man who would do the job capably for £14 a month. Thus, in the real sense of the words, Dickens was paid to illustrate Seymour. The first few numbers were only moderately suc cessful-about 400 of No. 1 were sold. But when Seymour died, and was succeeded by Phiz, Dickens rapidly freed himself from the first conception of the Nimrod Club, and with the introduction of Sam Weller the series became a stupendous success,. the sales rising to 40,000 per number. People began to talk, says G. K. Chesterton, as if real life itself were only the interlude between one issue of Pickwick and the next. In our lifetime we have not seen any comparable excitement around printed serial fiction, and the most: likely successor to Pickwick. would seem to be a radio serial written with equal genius and humanity.