His first systematic literary efforts were as a daily writer and reporter
for _The True Sun_; he then contributed his sketches of life and
character, drawn from personal observation, to the _Morning Chronicle_:
these were an earnest of his future powers. They were collected as
_Sketches by Boz_, in two volumes, and published in 1836.
PICKWICK.--In 1837 he was asked by a publisher to prepare a series of
comic sketches of cockney sportsmen, to illustrate, as well as to be
illustrated by, etchings by Seymour. This yoking of two geniuses was a
trammel to both; but the suicide of Seymour dissolved the connection, and
Dickens had free play to produce the _Pickwick Papers_, by Boz, which were
illustrated, as he proceeded, by H. K. Browne (Phiz). The work met and
has retained an unprecedented popularity. Caricature as it was, it
caricatured real, existent oddities; everything was probable; the humor
was sympathetic if farcical, the assertion of humanity bold, and the
philosophy of universal application. He had touched our common nature in
all ranks and conditions; he had exhibited men and women of all types; he
had exposed the tricks of politics and the absurdity of elections; the
snobs of society were severely handled.
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