Sketches of Young Gentlemen

Dickens at his most mischievous. Before he became the master of Victorian novels, he was the age's sharpest observer of social types, and this slight, sparkling volume proves he could dissect a fop as brilliantly as he would later dissect poverty. Written in 1838 as a playful counterpoint to a similar book about young ladies, these sketches catalog the absurd species of young gentlemen cluttering London's drawing rooms and dinner tables. There's the bashful young man who cannot eat his dinner in peace, the military dandy preening before every mirror, the theatrical type who performs his own life, and the political enthusiast who will explain the nation's troubles to anyone who stands still long enough. Dickens pokes fun gently, but beneath the wit lies something sharper: a commentary on how young men perform masculinity, seek status, and fumble through the rituals of polite society. For readers who love Dickens's comic genius but want something briefer than a 500-page novel, this is pure pleasure.