50 episodes listed below
A learned club, a runaway hat, a sideways horse.
A LibriVox recording of Charles Dickens's The Pickwick Papers, served one numbered chapter at a time, each episode opening on its long-winded chapter heading. The comedy is slapstick told with a straight face: Mr. Pickwick chasing his own hat across a military field day, Mr. Winkle aboard a horse that drifts up the street side first.
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The Pickwick Papers by Charles Dickens is a LibriVox recording of the novel, presented as a long sequence of numbered chapter episodes and, like all LibriVox recordings, in the public domain. The natural starting point is '01 - The Pickwickians', which introduces the club and the narrator's peculiar stance. That stance matters. The narrator presents the story as the work of an editor, drawing on the club's Transactions and on letters and manuscripts described as unquestionably genuine, and brings the same scholarly care to the smallest mishaps. In chapter one, Mr. Pickwick is hailed as the man who traced the ponds of Hampstead to their source and stirred the scientific world with his theory of tittlebats. Called on by his followers, he mounts a Windsor chair and addresses the club he founded, one hand tucked behind his coat-tails. The chapters that follow send the club to a military field day, an inn yard and Manor Farm. The slapstick is exact. At the field day, advancing regiments throw Mr. Snodgrass and Mr. Winkle into involuntary somersaults, Mr. Winkle stanches a nosebleed with a yellow silk handkerchief, and Mr. Pickwick is left chasing his own hat, prompting a brief digression on the coolness and judgment that hat-catching demands. As a carriage rattles off, the fat boy aboard it has already nodded off again. In chapter five, Mr. Pickwick fights the reins of a head-jerking horse while Mr. Winkle's mount drifts up the street side first, watched with delight by the whole inn yard. Mr. Tupman, meanwhile, snatches a kiss from Emma and is repaid with pushes and scratches. The prose can also slow down and look around, as when Mr. Pickwick leans over the balustrades of Rochester Bridge before breakfast, taking in a ruined wall and the seaweed hanging from the stones below. Satire slips in as well: a straight-faced portrait of Muggleton sets the borough's petitions against slavery abroad beside an equal number opposing any interference with the factory system at home. Then the mood turns. In the stroller's tale, a feverish man seizes his visitor by the wrist and begs 'Don't leave me!' Chapter six seats Mr. Wardle's mother in the place of honour by the chimney-piece, and later Mr. Wardle coaxes an old clergyman into a story that ends in a corner of the churchyard, where a contrite returned convict lies buried. The gloom does not settle. Chapter three, which carries the stroller's tale, closes with good humour restored and only a trace of irritation left in Mr. Winkle over the brief loss of his coat, and chapter seven ends with the worthies of Dingley Dell and Muggleton singing 'We won't go home till morning'. What comes through is a comic novel in chapter-sized pieces, with the jokes living in the long sentences as much as in the pratfalls.
Made for: Suits a listener who enjoys classic comic fiction heard chapter by chapter and finds long, ornate sentences funniest when they end on a runaway hat. It also fits someone comfortable with the occasional grim inset story among the jokes.
What sets it apart: The humour rests on a narrator posing as the dutiful editor of a club's records, treating hat chases and wayward horses like business for a learned society. Short, darker tales told by the people the club meets cut across that comedy.
A sportsman who doesn't hunt; a poet who doesn't write; a lover with no one to love; all three are devoted to their cheerful and benevolent leader, Mr. Pickwick. Join him and his friends, Winkle, Snodgrass, and Tupman, as they tour the country in search of adventures, knowledge, and stories. Along the way, they have their share of mishaps, and meet plenty of interesting characters, both the good and the not so good. (Mr. Pickwick's dedicated manservant, Sam Weller, is a scene-stealer sure to delight just about everybody.)You may shed a few tears along the way, but usually of the pleasant sort. This is a mostly lighthearted and humorous tale, with a number of subplots woven in, in Dickens’ in…
Mr. Pott reads his old editorials as Pickwick's eyes close; you can call that political engagement.
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Short reviews from the PlayNext desk, based on the episodes we processed.
A careworn acquaintance brings a bedside confession that darkens the Pickwickians' convivial evening.
A convivial evening takes a darker turn when Mr. Pickwick's absent friends return among odd company, including a careworn stranger whose Stroller's Tale shifts the mood from social curiosity to domestic dread.
A runaway hat turns a chaotic field day toward the promise of Dingley Dell.
Mr. Pickwick's field day turns military disorder into a comic trial of dignity, as moving and stationary lines collide and the Pickwickians struggle to find a place that is not in the way. Mr. Winkle ends up on the ground with a yellow silk handkerchief to his nose, while Mr.
A peaceful morning turns into a neatly escalating comedy of failed horsemanship for Mr. Pickwick and Mr. Winkle.
Mr. Pickwick's try at driving and Mr. Winkle's try at riding turn a bright morning near Rochester into a brisk comedy of misplaced confidence. Horses jerk, shy, edge sideways, and bolt ahead, while the inn-yard takes in the whole performance from a safer remove. Mr.
A formal parlor gathering gives way to a grim tale of guilt, recognition, and penitence.
An old-fashioned card party slowly takes on a darker charge as Mr. Pickwick watches the company in Mr. Wardle's old parlor, and the clergyman's verses give way to the story of John Edmonds, the returned convict.
A botched shot opens into cricket, civic absurdity, and a dinner no one is ready to leave.
Mr. Winkle's muddled aim gives the episode its neat comic hinge: he shoots at the crow and wounds the pigeon instead. From there, the story opens into a Dingley Dell gathering, with the Dingley-Dell Cricket Club facing All Muggleton, the visitors dining at their hosts' expense,…
The Pickwick Papers chapter "A New Acquaintance--The Stroller's Tale--A Disagreeable Interruption, And An Unpleasant Encounter" moves from Mr.
["Joe, the fat boy, keeps falling asleep while Wardle's hamper fills with fowls, tongue, pigeon pie, veal and ham, lobster, salad, and wine.", "Mr.
Charles Dickens's Chapter V of The Pickwick Papers turns a trip to Manor Farm into a comic disaster when Mr.
Chapter VI of The Pickwick Papers moves from an old-fashioned card party at Mr.
["Chapter VII of The Pickwick Papers moves from Mr.
The Pickwick Papers chapter follows Mr.
The Pickwick Papers chapter “Clearing up all Doubts” follows Mr.
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The Pickwick Papers chapter follows Mr.
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Charles Dickens’s The Pickwick Papers, Chapter Fifteen, brings Mr.
Chapter 16 of The Pickwick Papers follows Mr.
Mr.
This episode is a reading of Chapter 42 of The Pickwick Papers, where Mr.
A reading of Chapter 45 of The Pickwick Papers, where Sam Weller enjoys a pint of porter and reads the newspaper in the skittle-ground.
A LibriVox recording of Chapter 46 of The Pickwick Papers, where a cabriolet with conflicting passengers arrives at Mrs.
Mr.