The Life and Adventures of Martin Chuzzlewit was published in twenty monthly parts by Chapman and Hall from January 1843 to July 1844 and is the novel in which Dickens’s comic genius reaches its most extravagant pitch. Seth Pecksniff — the architect who has never designed a building, the moral philosopher who has no morals, the embodiment of conscious hypocrisy delivered with unconscious magnificence — is Dickens’s greatest comic villain, and the novel that surrounds him is his most ferociously funny work.
The Novel
Young Martin Chuzzlewit, disinherited by his rich grandfather for loving a poor girl, travels to America (where he encounters a gallery of frauds, braggarts, and swindlers that constituted Dickens’s revenge on the country he had visited, with disappointment, in 1842) and returns to England to confront Pecksniff, who has been systematically exploiting the grandfather. Meanwhile, Jonas Chuzzlewit — Martin’s cousin — murders his father (or believes he has) and is blackmailed into involvement with a fraudulent insurance company, eventually murdering the blackmailer before being arrested and poisoning himself.
The American chapters, which satirize American boastfulness, violence, hypocrisy about slavery, and cultural vulgarity with withering accuracy, made the novel a diplomatic incident. American readers were outraged; American newspapers denounced Dickens; the novel’s American sales collapsed.
Pecksniff
Seth Pecksniff is Dickens’s supreme creation in the art of hypocrisy. He teaches architecture but has never built a building. He preaches morality but has none. He exploits his students, fleeces his relatives, and betrays every confidence — all while delivering speeches of such magnificent sanctimony that even his victims are temporarily impressed. Dickens’s portrait is so complete that “Pecksniffian” became an English adjective, and the character influenced Trollope’s Bishop Proudie, Meredith’s Sir Willoughby Patterne, and every subsequent fictional hypocrite in the language.
The American Chapters
Dickens’s visit to America in 1842 — documented in American Notes — had been disillusioning. He expected a democratic paradise; he found a slaveholding republic that pirated his books and whose citizens combined self-congratulation with brutal behaviour. Martin Chuzzlewit’s American chapters are his revenge: the Eden land speculation (a swamp), the newspapers (all lies), the politicians (all frauds), and the citizens (all armed) are drawn with satirical fury that remains uncomfortable to read. The chapters contributed to a transatlantic literary hostility that lasted decades.
Collecting Martin Chuzzlewit
First edition in parts (Chapman and Hall, London, 1843–1844): Twenty monthly parts in blue-green wrappers. Illustrated by Hablot Knight Browne with 40 plates.
Approximate market values:
- Complete in original parts, fine: $5,000–$15,000
- Very good: $2,000–$5,000
- First edition in book form (1844): $1,500–$4,000
Value trajectory (2016–2026): Steady appreciation.
Projected values (2026–2036): Fine sets should reach $15,000–$30,000.
Frequently Asked Questions
Why is this underrated? Chuzzlewit sold poorly by Dickens’s standards — it followed the enormous success of A Christmas Carol and readers expected something different. Its relative commercial failure convinced Dickens to abandon episodic picaresque and plan his novels more carefully, leading directly to Dombey and Son and the great mature works. Critics now consider it among his richest novels, but it remains less read than David Copperfield or Great Expectations.
Who is Mrs. Gamp? Sarah Gamp — the disreputable, gin-drinking nurse who conducts long conversations with her fictional friend Mrs. Harris (“I don’t believe there’s no sich a person!”) — became so famous that “gamp” entered English as slang for an umbrella. She is Dickens at his most gleefully inventive.