Sketches by Boz ★★★☆½

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Title: Sketches by Boz
Series: ----------
Author: Charles Dickens
Rating: 3.5 of 5 Stars
Genre: Classic
Pages: 874
Words: 252K

Synopsis:

A series of “sketches” about places, people and situations culled from Dickens' tenure as a newspaper columnist.

My Thoughts:

The full title this book is Sketches by Boz: Illustrative of Everyday Life and Everyday People. So you have a 800+ pages of little short sketches that Dickens used to fill in blank spaces when he was writing at various newspapers.

Dickens gets very preachy about his pet issues in several of the sketches. I'm a teetotaler and even I was reacting against his emotional manipulation about gin shops. I was like “Ok, time to start drinking hard time, that will show him!”

When I read these back in 2007 I read them as part I and II (as that is how they were broken up in the hardcovers I own) and that worked much better. Honestly, these should be treated as a short story collection and perused at leisure. This time around I was better able to appreciate the technical side of Dickens' writing which is why I'm bumping it up to 3 ½ stars.

That being said, I highly doubt I'll ever read this again. No stories, no plot, doesn't really work for me.

★★★☆½

• Sketches by Boz, Part I (2007 Review)
• Sketches by Boz, Part II (2007 Review)