Pickwick was the brand of the tea my grandmother used to buy – over forty-five years ago. The brand, I find out checking on Amazon, is still around – but they no longer use the coach as a logo. That’s where I first heard the name, and associated it to… well, horse-drawn coaches.

Later, of course, I learned about the novel – through a very funny adaptation produced by the Italian state television – back when our TV aimed at educating the masses while entertaining them. before reality shows, in other words. And then in school – I was bored to death by a simplified version in English I was saddled with, one summer, when I was in middle school. When I finally made it to the novel proper, in the first year in high school, I was taught it was an inferior work, a juvenile effort from the genius that would later give us Oliver Twist and Great Expectations. Pickwick Papers? Rubbish.