Comfortable travel is contrasted with the stagnant squalor of Fleet Prison. Dickens achieves these values by presenting them against rather unpleasant realities. Pickwick Papers exalts the joys of travel, the pleasures of eating and drinking well, fellowship between men, innocence, benevolence, youthfulness and romance. The important values are precisely those that blend well with comedy. Not that Dickens makes the reader swallow a bitter pill with a sugar coating of humor. This is essentially a serious novel, but its serious aspects are presented in the guise of comedy. Pickwick Papers is a publisher's dream: the perennial best-seller. The novel is funny, easy to read, rich in characterization, humane and Christian in its values, lively and continuously entertaining - in short, a thorough delight. The reasons for its universal popularity are not hard to find. Moreover, in England today there are men who retrace the imaginary travels of the Pickwickians, as if to recreate the world of the novel. Most "smash hits" are quickly forgotten, but this novel is still read for enjoyment by general readers. It inspired Pickwick products, literary imitations and plagiarisms, and state adaptations. Since its first publication in serial form in 1836 it has enjoyed an immense success. Pickwick Papers is one of the most popular novels of all time.
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