Robert Seymour, a caricaturist, and the illustrator of such works as _The Odd Volume_, _The Looking Glass_, and _Humorous Sketches_, had been employed by Chapman and Hall to illustrate a comic publication called _The Squib Annual_; and this led him to suggest that he should make a series of Cockney sporting plates which could be furnished with letter-press. Hall applied to Dickens, then an unknown newspaper man, for the text, a "something which should be a vehicle for certain plates to be executed by Mr. Seymour." Dickens says of this proposition: "I objected.... My views being deferred to, I thought of Mr. Pickwick, and wrote the first number; from the proof-sheets of which Mr. Seymour made his drawing of the Club and his happy portrait of its founder. I connected Mr. Pickwick with a club, because of the original suggestion; and I put in Mr. Winkle expressly for the use of Mr. Seymour." The work came out in twenty parts (parts nineteen and twenty were bound together), beginning in April, 1836, and ending with November, 1837. They were covered in light green paper bordered with a design by Seymour, and engraved by John Jackson, a pupil of Bewick and Hervey. The title reads, _The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club_ [_Five lines_] _Edited by "Boz. With Illustrations...."_ The publication of the second number was delayed by the suicide of Seymour, whose mind gave way from overwork. This sad event was announced to the public in a note, and an apology was offered for the reduction of the number of plates from four to three. "When we state that they comprise Mr. Seymour's last efforts, and that on one of them, in particular (the embellishment of the Stroller's Tale), he was engaged up to a late hour of the night preceding his death, we feel confident that the excuse will be deemed a sufficient one." The third and succeeding numbers contained two plates each. Those in the third part were originally executed by Robert Buss, who learned to etch in order to produce them. But he gave up the work, and his plates were replaced in later issues by others by Hablot K. Browne, or "Phiz," who did the remaining plates. The last or double part contained three plates and an engraved title-page. With it subscribers received also the printed title-page, dedication, preface, contents, Directions to the Binder and Table of Errata. In the eighteenth number, dated September 29, 1837, the following important announcement appears: