Dickens was then writing his "Sketches by Boz," and this ungraceful elaboration of his signature was probably accompanied by a growing sense of his own capacity and power.

A whimsical originality of mind comes out also in the curious "B" of "Boz" (No. 10).

In No. 16 we see another and very original form of the "Boz" signature.

Sketches by Boz.

In the meantime," he said, scribbling on a piece of paper that had some kind of drawing on it, "I have autographed a sketch of Boz to take back with you.

Boz was the name I used when I first embarked on my literary adventures.

In case you are wondering if there is a cryptic connection between Boz and Baum and Oz, you'll have to keep wondering about that.

" The name of this first sketch was "Mr. Minns and his Cousin," and it appeared with other stories in his first book, Sketches by Boz, in 1835.

Pickwick Papers Dickens first became known to the public through the famous "Sketches by Boz," which appeared in the "Monthly Magazine" in December, 1833, the complete series being collected and published in volume form three years later.

" After delivering one of the conversations between Rasselas and Imlac in a majestic, high-pitched voice, Miss Jenkyns said, "I imagine I am now justified in my preference for Dr. Johnson over your Mr. Boz as a writer of fiction.

When he was gone she bade me put it in the lumber-room, feeling probably that no present from a man who preferred Mr. Boz to Dr. Johnson could be less jarring than an iron fire-shovel.

There are always such conjurors to tell literary fortunes; and, to my certain knowledge, Boz, according to them, has been sinking regularly these six years.

BOZ, Charles Dickens.

Children called the name Bozes, which got shortened into Boz (1812-1870).

"No man can write simpler and stronger English than the celebrated Boz, and this renders us the more annoyed at those manifold vulgarities and slipshod errors, which unhappily have of late years disfigured his productions.

Dickens began with a broadly comic series of papers, contributed to the Old Magazine and the Evening Chronicle, and reprinted in book form, in 1836, as Sketches by Boz.

Many of his characters are either the creations of Boz or their children and he contrives to carry on the interweaving of their lives to an unbelievable extenteven when the fullest allowance has been made for the smallness of the world.

But like the German philologist's example of the remarkable incongruity in English between spelling and pronunciation, that what was written 'Boz' was pronounced 'Charles Dickens,' so I cheerfully add to this list of incongruities that what is written 'bright stars' is pronounced 'Boston,' and 'viewless air' is pronounced 'Dartmouth Street.'

BOZ, a nom de plume under which Dickens wrote at first, being his nickname when a boy for a little brother.

I don't think we had happened to see the Sketches by Boz.