Full tan leather binding Gilt edging on boards, green title plate with ornate gilt tooling on the spine. Gilt on all page edges. Presented in a newly made protective box.

Publisher: Chapman & Hall. London – the large single updated version

A collection of Charles Dickens’ early stories that had been published in Monthly Magazine, The Morning Chronicle, and other periodicals. The collection was first published by John Macrone in February 1836 and was later expanded and issued in monthly parts (Nov 1837-June 1839) by Dickens’ next publishers, Chapman and Hall. Illustrations for all of the iterations were provided by established artist George Cruikshank. The sketches provide delightful glimpses into life in early Victorian London.

Dickens later wrote of Sketches: “They comprise my first attempts at authorship. I am conscious of their often being extremely crude and ill-considered, and bearing obvious marks of haste and inexperience.”

1. Dickens’ pseudonym Boz came from his younger brother Augustus’s through-the-nose pronunciation of his own nickname, Moses.
2. In December 1833, Charles Dickens’s first literary effort was published. It was a sketch or essay entitled A Dinner at Poplar Walk. Other sketches soon followed.

Dickens wanted a memorable way of identifying the sketches as his. He finally picked a nickname for himself. One of his favourite characters in Goldsmith’s Vicar of Wakefield was called Moses. Moses became Boses which became Boz.

Charles Dickens’ first published work, A Dinner at Poplar Walk, appeared in Monthly Magazine in December 1833. It was later renamed Mr Minns and His Cousin and was included in Sketches by Boz.