Two images of the Charles Dickens stamp issue due out on June 19 have been released by Royal Mail on the author's birthday. 

The set will include six sheet stamps and a four-stamp miniature sheet.

The character of Mr Pickwick, from The Pickwick Papers, forms a set of six stamps based on illustrations from Character Sketches from Charles Dickens, by Joseph Clayton Clarke (known as Kyd), published around 1890.

The Nicholas Nickleby stamp will be part of a miniature sheet of four stamps of illustrations by Hablot Knight Brown, (known as Phiz), who illustrated ten of Dickens' books.

Philip Parker, Royal Mail Stamps spokesman, said: 'Charles Dickens was one of the truly great British novelists, a man born into poor circumstances who went on to change the world in which he lived thanks not just to his novels, but his campaigning journalism and philanthropy.'

Royal Mail promise Oliver Twist, David Copperfield and A Tale of Two Cities will also feature.