Humorous Readings from Charles Dickens. Edited by Charles B. Neville.
(Simpkin, Marshall, and Co.)—Here we have two series of extracts, made for the purpose of reading, from the earlier works of Charles Dickens. (For obvious reasons, the choice is limited to those that have passed, by lapse of time, out of copy- right.) We may take the numbers of the pieces as indicative of popular taste, subject, of course, to the limitation mentioned above. The books have been used for the purpose in the fol- lowing order :—" Pickwick," 25; "Nicholas Nickleby," 14; "David Copperfield," 12; "Oliver Twist," 10; and "Martin Chuzzlewit," 4. "Sketches by Boz " furnish 2. We are surprised that "Martin Chuzzlewit " has not been more used; that none of the American scenes, for instance, have been selected. We do not exactly know what Mr. Neville has done as editor, but he might have found a better title for the scene between Pecksniff and Mary Graham than an "Unacceptable Old Man's Wooing." It was not as an "old man" that Pecksniff was unacceptable.
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