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Charles Dickens

1812-1870. "A Dinner at Poplar Walk" was Charles Dickens' first published story, appearing in Monthly Magazine. The story was renamed "Mr Minns and His Cousin" when published in Sketches by Boz, a collection of short fiction and journalistic pieces published in 1836. Dickens' first novel, The Pickwick Papers, began serialization that same year. A hugely commercially and critically successful writer, his novels have never gone out of print. Learn more about the life and work of Charles Dickens.

A Dinner at Poplar Walk

22 September 2007
Vol. 7, No. 3
fiction, short story, classic

Mr. Augustus Minns was a bachelor, of about forty as he said—of about eight-and-forty as his friends said. He was always exceedingly clean, precise, and tidy; perhaps somewhat priggish, and the most retiring man in the world. He usually wore a brown frock-coat without a wrinkle, light inexplicables without a spot, a neat neckerchief with a remarkably neat tie, and boots without a fault; moreover, he always carried a brown silk umbrella with an ivory handle.