Spend a long night at a London police station in The Metropolitan Protectives, Charles Dickens's vivid, sympathetic account of the men who guarded the Victorian city while it slept. First published in Household Words in 1851 and written with his sub-editor W. H. Wills, this piece of firsthand reportage sits Dickens behind the desk of a busy metropolitan police station, watching the parade of complaints, drunkards, lost children, and petty crime that filled the small hours. Dickens (1812 - 1870), the foremost chronicler of Victorian London, uses the vantage point to argue for the quiet competence and humanity of the young Metropolitan Police, then barely two decades old. It is social observation of the highest order, alert to both the comedy and the hardship of the nocturnal city. This edition features:A firsthand, hour-by-hour portrait of a Victorian London police station through one long working night in 1851. Written by Dickens with his Household Words deputy W. H. Wills, blending close reportage with sharp social comedy. A revealing look at the early Metropolitan Police and the everyday troubles that passed nightly across their desk.