Sam Weller (character) Sam Weller (character) Sam Weller is a fictional character in "The Pickwick Papers", the first novel by Charles Dickens, and is the character that made Dickens famous. Weller first appeared in the tenth serialised episode. Previously the monthly parts of the book had been doing badly—the humour of the character transformed the book into a publishing phenomenon. Weller's way of quoting people has led to the wellerism, often a type of proverb. In chapter 10 of the novel, the eponymous hero Mr. Pickwick meets Sam Weller working at the White Hart Inn in The Borough and soon takes him on
Charles Dickens single day. His favourite actor was Charles Mathews, and Dickens learnt his "monopolylogues", (farces in which Mathews played every character), by heart. Then, having learned Gurney's system of shorthand in his spare time, he left to become a freelance reporter. A distant relative, Thomas Charlton, was a freelance reporter at Doctors' Commons, and Dickens was able to share his box there to report the legal proceedings for nearly four years. This education was to inform works such as "Nicholas Nickleby", "Dombey and Son", and especially "Bleak House"—whose vivid portrayal of the machinations and bureaucracy of the legal system did much