Sketches by Boz, Illustrative of Every-day Life and Every-day People is a collection of short pieces published by Charles Dickens in 1836. The 56 sketches concern London scenes and people and are divided into four sections: Our Parish, Scenes, Characters, and Tales.
It was Dickenss first book, published when he was twenty-four, and in it we find him walking the London streets, in theatres, pawnshops, law-courts, prisons, along the Thames, and on the omnibus, missing nothing, recording and transforming urban and suburban life into new terrain for literature. Originally, the sketches were published in various newspapers and periodicals from 1833-1836 before being published collectively in one volume.