Sketches by Boz, Illustrative of Every-Day Life and Every-Day People

Charles Dickens is the author of Sketches by Boz, Illustrative of Every-Day Life and Every-Day People, with illustrations by George Cruickshank and Phiz. The preface says that the whole of these Sketches were written and published, one by one, when the writer was a very young man, and that they comprise his first attempts at authorship.

Mr. Bung says that he put in a good many distresses in his time, and that when left in this way he used to sit, think, think, thinking, till he felt as lonesome as a kitten in a wash-house copper with the lid on. A military gentleman asks Mr. Joseph Tuggs whether he of course intends his son to make the grand tour, and Mr. Joseph Tuggs, who did not precisely understand what the grand tour was, replies Of course. Mr. Jobba said that the whole machine was undoubtedly liable to be blown up, but that was the only objection to it, and Professor Nogo arrived from the anatomical section to exhibit a model of a safety fire-escape.