“Mr. Augustus Minns was a bachelor, of about forty as he said — of about eight-and-forty as his friends said.”

— Charles Dickens

First lines of Dicken's first published work, originally titled "A Dinner at Poplar Walk" (1833), later published as "Mr. Minns and his Cousin"
Context: 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.

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English writer and social critic and a Journalist 1812–1870

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