PARTY ON PICKWICK

Author Charles John Huffam Dickens (early alias: Boz) was born this day in 1812 in Portsmouth England. In the nineteenth century everyone, from Queen Victoria to street sweepers, either read Dickens or had Dickens read to them.

Haven't ever really sampled anything beyond the Christmas Carol?
Get a quick Dickens dose with:

The New Year - Dickens describes a party on New Year's Eve 1835. Published in Bell's Life in London as Scenes and Characters No 11.
Omnibuses - Dickens' hilarious account of riding in a London omnibus.
Seven Dials - Sketch describing this notorious London slum, so named for the seven streets that come together there. Dickens observes the residents there living in squalor and filth. He's was so good at this.

"We once travelled four hundred miles, inside a stage-coach, with a stout man, who had a glass of rum-and-water, warm, handed in at the window at every place where we changed horses. This was decidedly unpleasant. We have also travelled occasionally, with a small boy of a pale aspect, with light hair, and no perceptible neck."