SKETCHES BY BOZ by [Dickens, Charles] - 1837

1837. illustrative of Every-Day Life and Every-Day People. Being a Continuation of "Watkins Tottle, and Other Sketches." Philadelphia: Carey, Lea & Blanchard, 1837. Original drab boards with rose cloth spine and printed label.

First American Edition, consisting of 1,250 copies issued in February 1837. These are the twelve pieces that had been published in England two months earlier as "The Second Series" of SKETCHES BY BOZ. (As is evident from this book's sub-title, this Philadelphia firm had published the ["First Series"] of SKETCHES BY BOZ as WATKINS TOTTLE and Other Sketches, nine months earlier.) Later in 1837, Carey Lea & Blanchard reprinted this volume, with the addition of "The Tuggs's at Ramsgate" and "The Pantomime of Life," under the title THE TUGGS'S AT RAMSGATE AND OTHER SKETCHES. This is a very good copy (there is wear along the edges of the spine, and the spine label is rubbed but wholly legible -- but this extremely fragile volume has held up very well for the past 180+ years); the faint remnants of a shelf label are visible at the top of the spine, and there is an old ink-stamped name at the top of the title page. Podeschi (Yale) A9; Wilkins had seen only the later reprint but noted "there had evidently been an earlier issue...