Samuel Weller, or, The Pickwickians

Samuel Weller, or, The Pickwickians is an 1837 comedy in three acts adapted from Dickens's novel The Pickwick Papers by William Thomas Moncrieff.

W. T. Moncrieff's 'Farcical Comedy' Sam Weller; or the Pickwickians opened at the Royal Strand Theatre in 1837 in a production directed by William John Hammond (1797–1848)[1] and that ran for 80 performances before touring the provinces.

[5] Dickens complained against this adaptation[2] with Moncrieff defending his plagiarism in a long advertisement on the playbill in which he stated, 'Late experience has enabled him to bring Mr. Pickwick's affairs to a conclusion rather sooner than his gifted biographer has done, if not so satisfactorily as could be wished, at all events quite legally.

[8] As the title suggests, Moncrieff decided to focus on Sam Weller, the main comic character in the novel, rather than on Samuel Pickwick himself.

[12][13] The play was adapted in 1850 by Thomas Hailes Lacy as The Pickwickians; or the Peregrinations of Sam Weller as a comic drama in three acts in prose.