Two City Sketches

CHARLES [JOHN HUFFAM] DICKENS (1812–1870), a prolific Victorian novelist, remains one of the best known and beloved English authors of all time. The second of the eight children of John Dickens and Elizabeth Barrow, he was born in Portsmouth into precarious social circumstances (one of his grandfathers had been a domestic servant, and the other was charged with embezzlement). His father (whose personality is reflected in the character of Mr. Micawber in Dickens’s David Copperfield) succeeded in achieving middle class status as a naval pay clerk, but his carefree management of money had unfortunate consequences for the family. When Dickens was twelve he was obliged to leave school and take on manual labor in a factory; his father was sentenced to debtors’ prison. These unsettling experiences had lasting effects, manifested in a variety of ways throughout the author’s career. When his father was released and the family’s situation had improved, Dickens was able to return to school, but his formal education, such as it was, ended when he was fifteen. He became a clerk in the office of a solicitor, then a court stenographer—jobs that provided him with an intimate knowledge of the predicaments of his fellow citizens. In 1834, when he was twenty-two, he began work as a court and parliamentary reporter for the Morning Chronicle; he had already begun to publish sketches of city life in the Morning Chronicle, as well as in the Evening Chronicle, the Monthly Magazine, and several other publications. Most of these sketches, beginning in late 1833, had appeared under the pseudonym “Boz.” In February 1836 a selection of these writings, in many cases revised and retitled, was published in two volumes with illustrations by George Cruikshank; this was Dickens’s first book, titled Sketches by Boz, Illustrative of Every-Day Life and Every-Day People. In his preface to this collection, Dickens made his aspirations evident: “In humble imitation of a prudent course, universally adopted by aeronauts, the Author of these volumes throws them up as his pilot balloon, trusting it may catch some favorable current, and devoutly and earnestly hoping it may go off well . . . . Unlike the generality of pilot balloons which carry no car, in this one it is very possible for a man to embark, not only himself, but all his hopes of future fame, and all his chances of future success.” His object, the author concluded, “has been to present little pictures of life and manners as they really are; and should they be approved of, he hopes to repeat his experiment with increased confidence, and on a more extensive scale.” A month later, the serial publication of The Pickwick Papers began, and there was indeed popular demand for a second selection of sketches, which appeared at the end of that same year. The complete collection of some fifty-six pieces came out in 1839, by which time Dickens’s commanding presence on the scene had been securely established. In that 1839 volume, the pieces are grouped in four categories: “Seven Sketches from Our Parish,” “Scenes,” “Characters,” and “Tales.” The two city sketches presented here are the first two included under “Scenes”; they are taken from the illustrated Sketches by Boz in the Standard Library Edition of Dickens’s Complete Writings published in thirty-two volumes by Houghton, Mifflin & Company (Boston and New York) in 1894.

—SD

The Streets: Morning

The appearance presented by the streets of London an hour before sunrise, on a summer’s morning, is most striking even to the few whose unfortunate pursuits of pleasure, or scarcely less unfortunate pursuits of business, cause them to be well acquainted with the scene. There is an air of cold, solitary desolation about the noiseless streets which we are accustomed to see thronged at other times by a busy, eager crowd, and over the quiet, closely-shut buildings, which throughout the day are swarming with life and bustle, that is very impressive.

The last drunken man, who shall find his way home before sunlight, has just staggered heavily along, roaring out the burden of the drinking song of...