Mr. Pickwick and his gentleman-adventurer friends set out to see England and stumble instead into duels, lawsuits, romantic misadventures, and one very memorable spell in debtors' prison — all narrated with the comic exuberance that made Dickens a sensation practically overnight. His first novel remains one of his funniest: a rollicking, episodic romp that turned a serialized magazine gimmick into the book that launched a career.