Rischgitz Collection
a familiar household word, as it was the nickname of his youngest brother, Augustus, whom (in honour of “The Vicar of Wakefield,” one of his favourite books) he had dubbed Moses, which, being facetiously pronounced through the nose, became Boses, and being shortened became Boz.
CHARLES DICKENS, circa 1864
(Reproduced from The Favourite Magazine, by kind permission of Messrs. Paul Naumann, Ltd.)
The time had now arrived when he considered himself justified in endeavouring to increase his stipend as a reporter for the Morning Chronicle by offering to contribute to its pages a similar series of sketches, for which he should be remunerated, and the proposal was acceded to. Accordingly we find several papers signed “Boz” in the Evening Chronicle, an offshoot of the Morning Chronicle. Some of his sketches of “Scenes and Characters” (signed “Tibbs”) appeared simultaneously in Bell’s Life in London, and a couple also in “The Library of Fiction,” edited by Charles Whitehead. Early in 1836 Dickens collected together a number of these bright little articles and stories, and sold the copyright for £100 to Macrone, who published them in two volumes under the title of “Sketches by Boz.”
Although remarkable for their humour and originality, the “Boz” sketches were presently to be eclipsed by a work which immediately took the world by storm, and upon which the reputation of Dickens securely rests. I allude to the ever fascinating “Pickwick Papers,” and perhaps the most extraordinary circumstance in connection therewith is the fact that the author was then only three-and-twenty.