Sketches by Boz

Charles Dickens author George Cruikshank illustrator Dennis Walder editor

Format:Paperback

Publisher:Penguin Books Ltd

Published:26th Oct '95

Should be back in stock very soon

Sketches by Boz cover

'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

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.

ISBN: 9780140433456

Dimensions: 197mm x 129mm x 30mm

Weight: 463g

688 pages