Brief Description
Contains many Dickensian themes - poverty, desperation, fear, temptation and the eventual triumph of good in the face of adversity. This book features some of the characters, such as Oliver himself (Who dares to ask for more), the tyrannical Bumble, the diabolical Fagin, the menacing Bill Sikes, Nancy and 'the Artful Dodger'.
Learn More about the Book
This fiercely comic tale stands in marked contrast to its genial predecessor, "The Pickwick Papers." Set against London's seedy back street slums, "Oliver Twist" is the saga of a workhouse orphan captured and thrust into a thieves' den, where some of Dickens's most depraved villains preside: the incorrigible Artful Dodger, the murderous bully Sikes, and the terrible Fagin, that treacherous ringleader whose grinning knavery threatens to send them all to the "ghostly gallows." Yet at the heart of this drama is the orphan Oliver, whose unsullied goodness leads him at last to salvation. In 1838 the publication of "Oliver Twist" firmly established the literary eminence of young Dickens. It was, according to Edgar Johnson, "a clarion peal announcing to the world that in Charles Dickens the rejected and forgotten and misused of the world had a champion."
On the Back Cover
One of the most swiftly moving and unified of Charles Dickens' great novels, Oliver Twist is also famous for its recreation through the splendidly realized figures of Fagin, Nancy, the Artful Dodger, and the evil Bill Sikes--of the vast London under--world of pickpockets, thieves, prostitutes, and abandoned children.
