Sketches By Boz (1836) is a collection of unrelated sketches and tales.

It includes the first piece by Dickens to be published.

The Monthly Magazine dated December 1, 1833, included "A Dinner At Poplar Walk."

Dickens was 21. He was born on February 7, 1812.

The bachelor Mr. Minns is a civil servant at Somerset House.

This is where John Dickens, the writer's father, began his government career in the Naval Pay Office. He worked here when transferred from Chatham to London.

At breakfast, Minns is visited by a suburban cousin who gives an invitation to Sunday dinner.

This cousin (at first named Bagshaw, later Budden) has an ulterior motive. He has a son. The cousin wants the childless Mr. Minns to make that son ("Alick") the heir to Minns's money. Minns hates dogs and children. The cousin's dog at the breakfast table upsets Minns.

"A Dinner at Poplar Walk" puts emphasis on the invitation that happens at an interrupted breakfast.

The revised story, retitled "Mr. Minns and His Cousin," puts as much emphasis on the Sunday dinner. It ends differently, too. In the original piece, Minns ends up moving to evade his relations. In the revised piece, Minns makes a will that make no mention of the obnoxious relatives he visited.

Dickens soon wrote more complicated narratives.

"The Boarding House" was his fifth story to be published.

It was many characters. The plot is far more complicated than what we find in "Mr. Minns and His Cousin."

Some ideas in these early pieces collected in Sketches By Boz would be used again by Dickens
in later novels.

For example, "spontaneous combustion" appears in the early sketch titled "The Streets--Morning."

Readers of Bleak House will recall that "spontaneous combustion" ended Krook's life.

A dance instructor named Signor Billsmethi in "Dancing Academy" in the Boz collection is much
like the dance instructor Turverydrop in Bleak House.

A nameless character in
"Our Parish" in the Boz
collection resembles
Magog, who courts Mrs.
Nickleby by throwing
vegetables over a wall.

Sketches By Boz--a big book (two
volumes)--was published in 1836.

Dickens wanted this collection of
his early pieces to be published
months earlier, but the book's
illustrator needed more time.

George Cruikshank was popular.

The unknown Dickens was
lucky to have such a famous
illustrator providing artwork

Wood-engravings cannot be rushed.

Maybe the delay in publication was fortunate.

Sketches By Boz was published at the very
moment a popular London illustrator named
Robert Seymour was seeking someone to
write text that would accompany his drawings.

The new Boz volume was brought to Seymour's attention.

This idea of combining Seymour drawings with text by Dickens evolved into The Pickwick Papers.

Soon, the two men argued. Who would lead in this collaboration?

The inventive Dickens thought Seymour should be guided by his comic text.

Seymour wanted text to follow his own ideas captured in drawings.

Seymour committed suicide on April 20, 1836.

Seymour illustrated the first and second monthly installments.

Robert W. Buss was hired, but the Buss illustrations for the third monthly installment did not please Dickens.

So Hablot Knight Browne was hired.

Browne took the nickname "Phiz" to complement Dickens' "Boz."

Phiz illustrated Dickens' works for 23 years.





Charles Dickens = Sketches By Boz (1836) collection of sketches and tales "A Dinner At Poplar Walk"

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