This richly varied collection of observation, fancy and fiction shows the London he knew so intimately at its best and worst - its streets, theatres, inns, pawnshops, law courts, prisons, omnibuses and the river Thames - in honest and visionary descriptions of eveiyday life and people. We see the condemned man in his prison cell, garrulous matrons, vulgar young clerks and Scrooge-like bachelors. A startling mixture of humour and pathos, these Sketches reveal London as wonderful terrain for an extraordinary young Dickens.
This richly varied collection of observation, fancy and fiction shows the London he knew so intimately at its best and worst - its streets, theatres, inns, pawnshops, law courts, prisons, omnibuses and the river Thames - in honest and visionary descriptions of eveiyday life and people. We see the condemned man in his prison cell, garrulous matrons, vulgar young clerks and Scrooge-like bachelors. A startling mixture of humour and pathos, these Sketches reveal London as wonderful terrain for an extraordinary young Dickens.