Books

London: Chapman and Hall, 1839. First complete edition. First Combined Edition in book form. First Impression. With 40 illustrations by George Cruikshank. 8vo, early three-quarter crushed morocco and marbled boards, the spine handsomely and ornately decorated in gilt within panels between raised bands of the spine. viii, 526. A fine copy. This is the first book edition complete with the forty Cruikshank plates and the first one volume combined edition. This is also the first impression with the publisher’s address “186 Strand”. Dickens took the pseudonym from a nickname he had given his younger brother Augustus, whom he called "Moses" after a character in Oliver Goldsmith's The Vicar of Wakefield. This, "being facetiously pronounced through the nose," became "Boses", which in turn was shortened to "Boz". The name remained coupled with "inimitable" until "Boz" eventually disappeared and Dickens became known as, simply, "The Inimitable". The…

Sketches by Boz, Illustrative of Every-day Life and Every-day People is Charles Dickens's first book, a collection of stories and essays that had been previously published in various periodicals.