# Is "Sketches by Boz" by Charles Dickens a First Edition?

> **Quick answer.** A first edition of Sketches by Boz by Charles Dickens (John Macrone, London, 1836) is identified by: Two separately published series, both John Macrone, London, both 12mo, both illustrated by George Cruikshank; a complete first edition is three volumes. Macrone, London — First Series 1836, Second Series 1837 [December 1836] — is correct, and so is the census's central claim: Sketches by Boz is Dickens's first book, the First Series appearing in February 1836, roughly a month before the first number of Pickwick.

**Checklist — a true first has these:**
- Two separately published series, both John Macrone, London, both 12mo, both illustrated by George Cruikshank; a complete first edition is three volumes
- First Series: two volumes, February 1836 — 'Sketches by "Boz," Illustrative of Every-Day Life, and Every-Day People' — with two etched frontispieces and 14 plates; original dark olive-green embossed leaf-pattern (seaweed-grain) cloth, spines gilt with a decorative shield enclosing the lettering, yellow endpapers (Thomas Hatton's own set had orange endpapers and he recorded only three seen so bound)
- Second Series: one volume, 'Complete in One Volume', title page dated 1837 though published December 1836 — half-title, etched frontispiece ('Seven Dials'), etched pictorial title and 8 plates (some cataloguers count the pictorial title among the plates and give 9); original speckled pink / rose sand-grain cloth, covers with a central wreath and linear borders in blind, spine lettered in gilt within black frames
- 20pp. publisher's catalogue dated December 1836 at the end
- The Second Series first-issue point is the Contents leaf: the first state is loosely inserted and lacks the list of illustrations, the second state has the illustrations listed on the verso
- An early — possibly suppressed — Second Series issue is recorded with 'Vol
- Publisher imprint reads John Macrone, London

| | |
|---|---|
| Author | Charles Dickens |
| Publisher | John Macrone, London |
| Year | 1836 |
| True first | UK edition |
| Format | Hardcover (trade) |
| Key point | Two separately published series, both John Macrone, London, both 12mo, both illustrated by George Cruikshank; a complete first edition is… |
| Book-club edition exists? | No |

## Points of issue
Two separately published series, both John Macrone, London, both 12mo, both illustrated by George Cruikshank; a complete first edition is three volumes. First Series: two volumes, February 1836 — 'Sketches by "Boz," Illustrative of Every-Day Life, and Every-Day People' — with two etched frontispieces and 14 plates; original dark olive-green embossed leaf-pattern (seaweed-grain) cloth, spines gilt with a decorative shield enclosing the lettering, yellow endpapers (Thomas Hatton's own set had orange endpapers and he recorded only three seen so bound). Second Series: one volume, 'Complete in One Volume', title page dated 1837 though published December 1836 — half-title, etched frontispiece ('Seven Dials'), etched pictorial title and 8 plates (some cataloguers count the pictorial title among the plates and give 9); original speckled pink / rose sand-grain cloth, covers with a central wreath and linear borders in blind, spine lettered in gilt within black frames; 20pp. publisher's catalogue dated December 1836 at the end. The Second Series first-issue point is the Contents leaf: the first state is loosely inserted and lacks the list of illustrations, the second state has the illustrations listed on the verso. An early — possibly suppressed — Second Series issue is recorded with 'Vol. III' not yet erased from the plates. The two series were bound differently and never issued as a matched set, so a uniform three-volume set in one cloth has been rebound. References: Smith I: 1, 2; Eckel pp. 11-13; Sadleir I, 699, 700.

## Is this the true first?
Macrone, London — First Series 1836, Second Series 1837 [December 1836] — is correct, and so is the census's central claim: Sketches by Boz is Dickens's first book, the First Series appearing in February 1836, roughly a month before the first number of Pickwick. The one thing the census flattens is the date logic, and it inverts the usual instinct: the Second Series was published in December 1836 but its title page reads 1837, so '1837' on a Second Series title page is the first edition, not a later printing. No UK/US or foreign-language precedence question arises; the American editions follow the London printing.

## Telling it from reprints & book-club editions
No book club edition. The 'first thus' traps are the reissues, and they are the books most people actually encounter. Macrone's own second edition of the First Series (1836) adds a new preface — an added preface is the tell. More consequentially, Chapman & Hall reissued the Sketches in twenty monthly parts, 1837-39, with new Cruikshank plates and a new vignette title, and sold the collected result from 1839 as the one-volume 'Sketches by Boz, Complete'; that Chapman & Hall text is the one endlessly reprinted and is routinely offered as an early Dickens first. Later states of the Second Series carry the list of illustrations on the Contents verso. Sets made up from odd volumes, or with the two series rebound to match each other, have had the cloth and endpaper evidence destroyed.

## Source
New Mexico Literacy Project — Is *Sketches by Boz* by Charles Dickens a first edition? https://newmexicoliteracyproject.org/first-edition/sketches-by-boz
CC BY 4.0. Part of the Canonical First-Edition Points of Issue dataset (https://newmexicoliteracyproject.org/api/first-edition-titles.json). Last reviewed 2026-07-04.