Samuel Pickwick is a fictional character and the main protagonist in The Pickwick Papers (1836), the first novel by author Charles Dickens. One of the author’s most famous and loved creations, Pickwick is a retired successful businessman and is the Founder and Chairman of the Pickwick Club, a club formed to explore places remote from London and investigate the quaint and curious phenomena of life found there. Although he is the main character in The Pickwick Papers Samuel Pickwick is mostly a passive and innocent figure in the story around whom the other more active characters operate. Having an almost childlike simplicity, Pickwick is loyal and protective toward his friends but is often hoodwinked by conmen and poseurs.