Customer Reviews

Sketches by Boz (The Oxford Illustrated Dickens)

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I read the Kindle edition of the book; it's a great sampler of classic Dickens without having to do the full-on 400+ readathon that many of his best works require. The most enjoyable aspect of the stories is the historic, authentic feel they give of London in the early 1800's. Dickens's keen eye for detail and his ability to describe it in a lively manner make this series of short stories a true time slip of a book.

The bubbling cauldron of 19th Century English society boils over the edges in these usually funny, always entertaining, often gripping sketches of people and places in London. His nostalgia for places and people being displaced by the economic growth brought on by the industrial revolution is strongest in his sketch "Scotland Yard," and the book is filled with a keen respect for the past without making apologies for its brutalities or injustices.

As with so many things written by Dickens, courting, drunkenness, elopement, hanky-panky, hypocrisy, true love, and human goodness feature prominently throughout. Stories such as "The Election for Beadle" presage the fuller parody of British elections that appears in "The Pickwick Papers," and his derisiveness in "Parliamentary Sketch" brings to bear much of his earlier experiences as a political reporter.

As in all his writing, however, Dickens's strength and power show strongest when he writes about the cab drivers, curates, hackney drivers, omnibus cads, chimney sweeps, circus performers, theater actors, gin shop waitresses, pawnbrokers, prison inmates, invalids, drunks, prostitutes, spinsters, lonely old men, unhappily married couples, abused wives, pensioners, milliners, and "shabby-genteel" people who made up the ordinary walks of life.

This book is a rare combination of humor, history, and pathos, all rolled into one.

Imagine one of the funniest and saddest collection of short stories by one of the greatest writers in the English language read by an vocally affectless female computer. Absolutely the worst thing ever foisted on an unwary public. Not worth spending a dime on. Pass it by friend.Sketches By Boz