Oliver Twist (Illustrated) – Charles Dickens

Details of the book

Title: Oliver Twist
Author: Charles Dickens
Publication: Serialized 1837–1839; book form 1838

About The Author

Charles John Huffam Dickens (February 7, 1812 – June 9, 1870) was an English writer and critic of the Victorian era. His literary works reflect his personal experience of growing up and the social context of his time, and were widely recognized and loved by critics, scholars and readers of his time and later generations.

Characters

• Oliver Twist – an orphan child whose mother died at his birth; father is dead when Oliver’s paternity is revealed.
• Mr Bumble – a beadle in the parish workhouse where Oliver was born
• Mrs Mann – superintendent where the infant Oliver is placed until age 9 who is not capable of caring for the “culprits” as she is self-centered and greedy.
• Mr Sowerberry – an undertaker who took Oliver as apprentice
• Mrs Sowerberry – Mr Sowerberry’s wife
• Noah Claypole – a cowardly bully, Sowerberry’s apprentice
• Charlotte – the Sowerberrys’ maid, lover of Noah
• Mr Gamfield – a chimney sweep in the town where Oliver was born
• Mr Brownlow – a kindly gentleman who takes Oliver in, his first benefactor
• Mr Grimwig – a friend of Mr Brownlow
• Mrs Bedwin – Mr Brownlow’s housekeeper
• Rose Maylie – Oliver’s second benefactor, later found to be his aunt
• Mrs Lindsay Maylie – Harry Maylie’s mother. Rose Maylie’s adoptive aunt
• Harry Maylie – Mrs Maylie’s son
• Mr Losberne – Mrs Maylie’s family doctor
• Mr Giles – Mrs Maylie’s butler
• Mr Brittles – Mrs Maylie’s handyman
• Duff and Blathers – two incompetent policemen
• Fagin – fence and boss of a criminal gang of young boys and girls
• Bill Sikes – a professional burglar
• Bull’s Eye – Bill Sikes’s vicious dog
• The Artful Dodger – Fagin’s most adept pickpocket
• Charley Bates – a pickpocket in Fagin’s gang
• Toby Crackit – an associate of Fagin and Sikes, a house-breaker
• Nancy – one of Fagin’s gang, now living with Bill Sikes
• Bet – a girl in Fagin’s gang, sometime friend to Nancy
• Barney – a criminal cohort of Fagin
• Agnes Fleming – Oliver’s mother
• Mr Leeford – father of Oliver and Monks
• Old Sally – a nurse who attended Oliver’s birth
• Mrs Corney – matron for the women’s workhouse
• Monks – a sickly criminal, an associate of Fagin’s, and long-lost half-brother of Oliver
• Monks’ mother – an heiress who did not love her husband
• Mr Fang – a magistrate
• Tom Chitling – one of Fagin’s gang members, returned from abroad at the time of the murder

Background Of Story

In The Oliver Twist, Dickens mixes cold reality with relentless satire, describing the side effects of the Industrial Revolution on nineteenth-century England. The innocent Oliver was caught up in the world, and his only way out was the poorhouse, Fagin’s gang, prison or the grave; and the poorhouse at that time was so disorganized that many kinds of old, young and poor people were living together, and it was called “social grave” and “living grave”. The “social graveyard” and “living grave” were also known.

In this newly industrialized/institutionalized context, fairy tales also proliferated. In this corrupt and degenerate environment, the passive Oliver maintains his true purity; he abhors sin when everyone else succumbs, and in a fairy tale style, Oliver is eventually rewarded – a peaceful life in the countryside and the company of charitable friends. In his march toward a happy ending, Dickens also explores the lives and possible landscapes of wandering, orphaned children in 1830s London.