Sam Weller (character) as a personal servant and companion on his travels. The relationship between the idealistic and unworldly Pickwick and the astute cockney Weller has been likened to that between Don Quixote and Sancho Panza. 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,
Charles Dickens a chapter on Charles Dickens, who was not amused by what Powell had written. One item that seemed to have annoyed him was the assertion that he had based the character of Paul Dombey ("Dombey and Son") on Thomas Chapman, one of the principal partners at John Chapman & Co. Dickens immediately sent a letter to Lewis Gaylord Clark, editor of the New York literary magazine "The Knickerbocker", saying that Powell was a forger and thief. Clark published the letter in the "New-York Tribune", and several other papers picked up on the story. Powell began proceedings to sue these publications,