The Pickwick Papers, A Game of Cricket 1837

This lithograph is by Robert William Buss, it illustrates a scene from Charles Dickens’s novel *The Pickwick Papers*. Buss was commissioned to provide illustrations after the death of the original illustrator, Robert Seymour. However, his work was not well received and he was quickly replaced. The Pickwick Papers is set against the backdrop of early 19th-century England, a time of significant social and economic change. Dickens’s novel is a satirical commentary on British society and the characters are largely caricatures. The scene depicts a cricket match, a sport deeply embedded in English culture, symbolizing camaraderie but also social stratification. Buss's work invites us to think about the intersections of class, leisure, and national identity in Victorian England. The characters embody the social types that Dickens critiques, reflecting the complex and often contradictory values of the time.