Charles Dickens - Sketches by “Boz” - 1890

A handsome late-Victorian edition of Charles Dickens’s Sketches by Boz: Illustrative of Every-Day Life and Every-Day People, published in London by Richard Edward King, circa 1890s. Bound in its original deep burgundy cloth with gilt lettering and gilt page edges, this substantial volume presents the work that first introduced readers to the extraordinary observational talent of the young Dickens. Written under his famous early pseudonym “Boz,” these sketches capture the streets, characters and everyday life of Victorian London before the great novels made Dickens one of the most celebrated writers in the world.

Sketches by Boz brings together Dickens’s early Seven Sketches from Our Parish, Scenes, Characters and Tales: wonderfully vivid portraits of London streets, theatres, shops, families and eccentrics, already displaying the humour, social observation and sympathy that would later animate Oliver Twist, David Copperfield and Bleak House. This attractive King edition retains Dickens’s 1850 preface and is complete through page 348 and “The End.” The original gilt-edged presentation gives it considerable period charm and makes it an appealing example of Dickens in a genuine Victorian edition.

Condition: Good, age-worn condition. The original burgundy cloth remains attractive with clear gilt lettering, showing rubbing, marks and wear to the corners and spine extremities. The gilt page edges remain clearly visible. Internally there is scattered foxing and age-toning throughout, heavier on the endpapers and in places, together with staining/marking to the endpapers and evidence of an old repair or reinforcement at the upper front inner board. The rear inner hinge is weakened and partially split, although the boards remain attached. The book is complete and readable, with the text remaining clear throughout — a characterful Victorian Dickens with wonderfully atmospheric period presentation.