The first published book from the great chronicler of nineteenth-century London is a richly evocative portrait of a bustling metropolis and its people rendered in characteristically peerless prose.
'Sets out the London of the 1830s before you, streets, people, pleasures, low life, prisons' Claire Tomalin
Charles Dickens's first published book, Sketches by Boz is a funny and touching collection of observation, fancy and fiction showing the London he knew in all its complexity - its streets, theatres, inns, pawnshops, law courts, prisons and, of course, the river Thames. His descriptions of everyday life and people seem to anticipate characters from his great novels - garrulous matrons, vulgar young clerks, Scrooge-like bachelors - while his powers of social critique shine in his unflinching depictions of the city's forgotten citizens, from child workers to prostitutes. This edition includes the original illustrations by George Cruikshank.
Edited with an Introduction and Notes by Dennis Walder
Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd
ISBN: 9780140433456
Number of pages: 688
Weight: 463 g
Dimensions: 197 x 129 x 30 mm
Walter Bagehot once remarked, Dickens wrote about London "like a special correspondent for posterity"."The first sprightly runnings of his genius are undoubtedly here," wrote Dickens’s friend and biographer John Forster.
This book is one of the least read of Dickens works but it really deserves a higher profile. The common misconception that anyone with an interest in 19th Century fiction is not engaged with 21st Century reality is... More
This is a book full of history, people and the culture and habits of that time. I have read much of Dickens
and Boz is a masterful collection for anyone who wishes an insight and flavour of the timespan covered....
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