Sketches by Boz - Illustrative of Every-Day Life and Every-Day People
by Charles Dickens
- Used
- Condition
- See description
- Seller
-
Torrance, California, United States
999 Copies Available from This Seller
(You can add more at checkout.)
Payment Methods Accepted
About This Item
MP3 Audio CD. Sketches by Boz: Illustrative of Every-Day Life and Every-Day People
OUR PARISH
CHAPTER I—THE BEADLE. THE PARISH ENGINE. THE SCHOOLMASTER
How much is conveyed in those two short words—‘The Parish!’ And with how
many tales of distress and misery, of broken fortune and ruined hopes,
too often of unrelieved wretchedness and successful knavery, are they
associated! A poor man, with small earnings, and a large family, just
manages to live on from hand to mouth, and to procure food from day to
day; he has barely sufficient to satisfy the present cravings of nature,
and can take no heed of the future. His taxes are in arrear, quarter-day
passes by, another quarter-day arrives: he can procure no more quarter
for himself, and is summoned by—the parish. His goods are distrained,
his children are crying with cold and hunger, and the very bed on which
his sick wife is lying, is dragged from beneath her. What can he do? To
whom is he to apply for relief? To private charity? To benevolent
individuals? Certainly not—there is his parish. There are the parish
vestry, the parish infirmary, the parish surgeon, the parish officers,
the parish beadle. Excellent institutions, and gentle, kind-hearted men.
The woman dies—she is buried by the parish. The children have no
protector—they are taken care of by the parish. The man first neglects,
and afterwards cannot obtain, work—he is relieved by the parish; and when
distress and drunkenness have done their work upon him, he is maintained,
a harmless babbling idiot, in the parish asylum.
The parish beadle is one of the most, perhaps the most, important
member of the local administration. He is not so well off as the
churchwardens, certainly, nor is he so learned as the vestry-clerk, nor
OUR PARISH
CHAPTER I—THE BEADLE. THE PARISH ENGINE. THE SCHOOLMASTER
How much is conveyed in those two short words—‘The Parish!’ And with how
many tales of distress and misery, of broken fortune and ruined hopes,
too often of unrelieved wretchedness and successful knavery, are they
associated! A poor man, with small earnings, and a large family, just
manages to live on from hand to mouth, and to procure food from day to
day; he has barely sufficient to satisfy the present cravings of nature,
and can take no heed of the future. His taxes are in arrear, quarter-day
passes by, another quarter-day arrives: he can procure no more quarter
for himself, and is summoned by—the parish. His goods are distrained,
his children are crying with cold and hunger, and the very bed on which
his sick wife is lying, is dragged from beneath her. What can he do? To
whom is he to apply for relief? To private charity? To benevolent
individuals? Certainly not—there is his parish. There are the parish
vestry, the parish infirmary, the parish surgeon, the parish officers,
the parish beadle. Excellent institutions, and gentle, kind-hearted men.
The woman dies—she is buried by the parish. The children have no
protector—they are taken care of by the parish. The man first neglects,
and afterwards cannot obtain, work—he is relieved by the parish; and when
distress and drunkenness have done their work upon him, he is maintained,
a harmless babbling idiot, in the parish asylum.
The parish beadle is one of the most, perhaps the most, important
member of the local administration. He is not so well off as the
churchwardens, certainly, nor is he so learned as the vestry-clerk, nor
Synopsis
Sketches by Boz collected a rich and strange mixture of reportage, observation, fancy and fiction centred on the metropolis. It was Dickens's 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. Sketches is a remarkable achievement, and looks towards Dickens's giant novels in its profusion of characters, its glimpses of surreal modernity and its limitless fund of pathos and comic invention.
Reviews
(Log in or Create an Account first!)
Details
- Bookseller
- IDB Productions
(US)
- Bookseller's Inventory #
- 9781776780266
- Title
- Sketches by Boz - Illustrative of Every-Day Life and Every-Day People
- Author
- Charles Dickens
- Format/Binding
- MP3 Audio CD
- Book Condition
- Used
- Quantity Available
- 999
Terms of Sale
IDB Productions
Due to the nature of these products, there are no refunds for opened CD's
About the Seller
IDB Productions
Biblio member since 2015
Torrance, California
About IDB Productions
Listnerz.com offers classic audio books and is committed to providing each customer with the highest standard of customer service.
Glossary
Some terminology that may be used in this description includes:
- Poor
- A book with significant wear and faults. A poor condition book is still a reading copy with the full text still readable. Any...
This Book’s Categories
Bob Dylan - 2016 Winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature
From the first screech of his electric guitar upsetting musicians at a folk festival to his writing and paintings, Bob Dylan has risen to become a seminal force in American popular culture. In 2016, he was recognized by the Nobel Committee. Learn more about his creations...
Welcome! Choose your site:
or
or
