Oliver Twist

Charles Dickens

• Publisher: Race Point Publishing
• Year: 2015
• Print ISBN: 9781631060724
• eBook ISBN: 9781627886772
• Topic: Literatur
• Subtopic: Altertumswissenschaften

Enjoy the classic rising-from-adversity tale of the little boy who only wants more.

A favorite among young readers and adults alike, Charles Dickens' second novel, Oliver Twist, was first published in 1838 and has been made into a number of stage, television, and film adaptations, including the 1968 Academy Award-winning film.

Oliver Twist tells the tale of the orphan Oliver, who is sent from the miserable conditions of a workhouse to work for an undertaker. He escapes, only to get caught up with the Artful Dodgers, a street gang of young pickpockets, led by the evil Fagin. Despite Oliver's bad start in life, he is able to rise above his circumstances.

Dickens' book was one of the first to realistically portray the seedy street life in Victorian London, bringing attention to the plight of child labor and street urchins. Dickens believed that novels shouldn't just entertain, but should help people understand each other and see the goodness inherent in every person. He thought that fair play and honesty, if not thwarted by some external force, is the natural order of life. However, this can be irretrievably lost if it is subjected to ungoverned corrupting influences.

It's a little melodrama, a little adventure, and a lot of fun to read. Complete and unabridged, this edition features a new introduction by Monica Feinberg Cohen.

The Knickerbocker Classics bring together the works of classic authors from around the world in stunning gift editions to be collected and enjoyed. Complete and unabridged, these elegantly designed cloth-bound hardcovers feature a slipcase and ribbon marker, as well as a comprehensive introduction providing the reader with enlightening information on the author's life and works.
 

THE LIFE AND TIMES OF CHARLES DICKENS

1812	7 February	Charles John Huffam Dickens is born to John and Elizabeth Barrow Dickens at Landport in the Portsea Island section of Portsmouth
1813		Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice is published by Thomas Egerton, Whitehall, London
1815	18 June	Napoleon is defeated at Waterloo by the combined armies of the Seventh Coalition
1816		The Dickens family moves to Chatham to be close to the Naval Yard where John Dickens works as a clerk in the pay office
1818		Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein is published by Lackington, Hughes, Harding, Mavor & Jones, Finsbury Square, London
1820	29 January	King George III dies and is succeeded by George IV
1821		John Dickens loses his job due to reforms in the Admiralty, and the family moves to Camden Town, London
1823		The British Museum is rebuilt and expanded
1824	2 February	John Dickens is arrested for debt and sent to Marshalsea Debtors Prison
		Charles is sent to Warren’s Blacking Factory at Hungerford Market and is put to work to help pay off the family’s debt
	28 May	John Dickens is released from Marshalsea and the family returns to Camden Town, though Charles is left to work through the summer at the Blacking Factory
	Fall	Charles returns home and attends a day school on Hempstead Road, London
1825	Fall	Charles is sent to Wellington House Academy in Camden Town
	27 September	The first passenger steam train trip is made between Stockton and Darlington in Durham, England
1827	May	Charles takes a position as a junior clerk at a law office in Holborn Court, Grey’s Inn, London
1828	22 January	Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington, is elected prime minister
	November	Charles leaves the law firm to become a freelance court reporter at Doctor’s Commons Courts, London
1829	June	Robert Peel establishes the Metropolitan Police
1830	26 June	King George IV dies and is succeeded by his brother, William IV
		Maria Beadnell’s parents respond to Charles’s ardor for their daughter by sending her to school in Paris, thereby ending the relationship a few years later
1831		Dickens is taken on by the Morning Chronicle as a political journalist to report on election campaigns and the demonstrations in favor of a Reform Bill
1832	4 June	The Great Reform Act becomes law, enfranchising about five hundred thousand new voters and abolishing “pocket boroughs”
1833		Dickens’s first story to be published, “Dinner on Poplar Walk,” appears in the London periodical Monthly Magazine
1834		Dickens adopts the pseudonym “Boz”
		Dickens’s friend, editor of the Evening Chronicle George Hogarth, introduces him to his daughter Catherine
1835	March	Dickens and Catherine are engaged
1836	February	Dickens’s collection of previously published short stories, Sketches by B...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title page
• Copyright page
• Contents
• INTRODUCTION
• I. TREATS OF THE PLACE WHERE OLIVER TWIST WAS BORN AND OF THE CIRCUMSTANCES ATTENDING HIS BIRTH
• II. TREATS OF OLIVER TWIST’S GROWTH, EDUCATION, AND BOARD
• III. RELATES HOW OLIVER TWIST WAS VERY NEAR GETTING A PLACE WHICH WOULD NOT HAVE BEEN A SINECURE
• IV. OLIVER, BEING OFFERED ANOTHER PLACE, MAKES HIS FIRST ENTRY INTO PUBLIC LIFE
• V. OLIVER MINGLES WITH NEW ASSOCIATES. GOING TO A FUNERAL FOR THE FIRST TIME, HE FORMS AN UNFAVORABLE NOTION OF HIS MASTER’S BUSINESS
• VI. OLIVER, BEING GOADED BY THE TAUNTS OF NOAH, ROUSES INTO ACTION, AND RATHER ASTONISHES HIM
• VII. OLIVER CONTINUES REFRACTORY
• VIII. OLIVER WALKS TO LONDON. HE ENCOUNTERS ON THE ROAD A STRANGE SORT OF YOUNG GENTLEMAN
• IX. CONTAINING FURTHER PARTICULARS CONCERNING THE PLEASANT OLD GENTLEMAN, AND HIS HOPEFUL PUPILS
• X. OLIVER BECOMES BETTER ACQUAINTED WITH THE CHARACTERS OF HIS NEW ASSOCIATES; AND PURCHASES EXPERIENCE AT A HIGH PRICE. BEING A SHORT, BUT VERY IMPORTANT CHAPTER, IN THIS HISTORY
• XI. TREATS OF MR. FANG THE POLICE MAGISTRATE; AND FURNISHES A SLIGHT SPECIMEN OF HIS MODE OF ADMINISTERING JUSTICE
• XII. IN WHICH OLIVER IS TAKEN BETTER CARE OF THAN HE EVER WAS BEFORE. AND IN WHICH THE NARRATIVE REVERTS TO THE MERRY OLD GENTLEMAN AND HIS YOUTHFUL FRIENDS
• XIII. SOME NEW ACQUAINTANCES ARE INTRODUCED TO THE INTELLIGENT READER, CONNECTED WITH WHOM VARIOUS PLEASANT MATTERS ARE RELATED, APPERTAINING TO THIS HISTORY
• XIV. COMPRISING FURTHER PARTICULARS OF OLIVER’S STAY AT MR. BROWNLOW’S, WITH THE REMARKABLE PREDICTION WHICH ONE MR. GRIMWIG UTTERED CONCERNING HIM, WHEN HE WENT OUT ON AN ERRAND
• XV. SHOWING HOW VERY FOND OF OLIVER TWIST, THE MERRY OLD JEW AND MISS NANCY WERE
• XVI. RELATES WHAT BECAME OF OLIVER TWIST, AFTER HE HAD BEEN CLAIMED BY NANCY
• XVII. OLIVER’S DESTINY CONTINUING UNPROPITIOUS, BRINGS A GREAT MAN TO LONDON TO INJURE HIS REPUTATION
• XVIII. HOW OLIVER PASSED HIS TIME IN THE IMPROVING SOCIETY OF HIS REPUTABLE FRIENDS
• XIX. IN WHICH A NOTABLE PLAN IS DISCUSSED AND DETERMINED ON
• XX. WHEREIN OLIVER IS DELIVERED OVER TO MR. WILLIAM SIKES
• XXI. THE EXPEDITION
• XXII. THE BURGLARY
• XXIII. WHICH CONTAINS THE SUBSTANCE OF A PLEASANT CONVERSATION BETWEEN MR. BUMBLE AND A LADY; AND SHOWS THAT EVEN A BEADLE MAY BE SUSCEPTIBLE ON SOME POINTS
• XXIV. TREATS ON A VERY POOR SUBJECT. BUT IS A SHORT ONE, AND MAY BE FOUND OF IMPORTANCE IN THIS HISTORY
• XXV. WHEREIN THIS HISTORY REVERTS TO MR. FAGIN AND COMPANY
• XXVI. IN WHICH A MYSTERIOUS CHARACTER APPEARS UPON THE SCENE; AND MANY THINGS, INSEPARABLE FROM THIS HISTORY, ARE DONE AND PERFORMED
• XXVII. ATONES FOR THE UNPOLITENESS OF A FORMER CHAPTER; WHICH DESERTED A LADY, MOST UNCEREMONIOUSLY
• XXVIII. LOOKS AFTER OLIVER, AND PROCEEDS WITH HIS ADVENTURES
• XXIX. HAS AN INTRODUCTORY ACCOUNT OF THE INMATES OF THE HOUSE, TO WHICH OLIVER RESORTED
• XXX. RELATES WHAT OLIVER’S NEW VISITORS THOUGHT OF HIM
• XXXI. INVOLVES A CRITICAL POSITION
• XXXII. OF THE HAPPY LIFE OLIVER BEGAN TO LEAD WITH HIS KIND FRIENDS
• XXXIII. WHEREIN THE HAPPINESS OF OLIVER AND HIS FRIENDS, EXPERIENCES A SUDDEN CHECK
• XXXIV. CONTAINS SOME INTRODUCTORY PARTICULARS RELATIVE TO A YOUNG GENTLEMAN WHO NOW ARRIVES UPON THE SCENE; AND A NEW ADVENTURE WHICH HAPPENED TO OLIVER
• XXXV. CONTAINING THE UNSATISFACTORY RESULT OF OLIVER’S ADVENTURE; AND A CONVERSATION OF SOME IMPORTANCE BETWEEN HARRY MAYLIE AND ROSE
• XXXVI. IS A VERY SHORT ONE, AND MAY APPEAR OF NO GREAT IMPORTANCE IN ITS PLACE, BUT IT SHOULD BE READ NOTWITHSTANDING, AS A SEQUEL TO THE LAST, AND A KEY TO ONE THAT WILL FOLLOW WHEN ITS TIME ARRIVES
• XXXVII. IN WHICH THE READER MAY PERCEIVE A CONTRAST, NOT UNCOMMON IN MATRIMONIAL CASES
• XXXVIII. CONTAINING AN ACCOUNT OF WHAT PASSED BETWEEN MR. AND MRS. BUMBLE, AND MR. MONKS, AT THEIR NOCTURNAL INTERVIEW
• XXXIX. INTRODUCES SOME RESPECTABLE CHARACTERS WITH WHOM THE READER IS ALREADY ACQUAINTED, AND SHOWS HOW MONKS AND THE JEW LAID THEIR WORTHY HEADS TOGETHER
• XL. A STRANGE INTERVIEW, WHICH IS A SEQUEL TO THE LAST CHAPTER
• XLI. CONTAINING FRESH DISCOVERIES, AND SHOWING THAT SUPRISES, LIKE MISFORTUNES, SELDOM COME ALONE
• XLII. AN OLD ACQUAINTANCE OF OLIVER’S, EXHIBITING DECIDED MARKS OF GENIUS, BECOMES A PUBLIC CHARACTER IN THE METROPOLIS
• XLIII. WHEREIN IS SHOWN HOW THE ARTFUL DODGER GOT INTO TROUBLE
• XLIV. THE TIME ARRIVES FOR NANCY TO REDEEM HER PLEDGE TO ROSE MAYLIE. SHE FAILS
• XLV. NOAH CLAYPOLE IS EMPLOYED BY FAGIN ON A SECRET MISSION
• XLVI. THE APPOINTMENT KEPT
• XLVII. FATAL CONSEQUENCES
• XLVIII. THE FLIGHT OF SIKES
• XLIX. MONKS AND MR. BROWNLOW AT LENGTH MEET. THEIR CONVERSATION, AND THE INTELLIGENCE THAT INTERRUPTS IT
• L. THE PURSUIT AND ESCAPE
• LI. AFFORDING AN EXPLANATION OF MORE MYSTERIES THAN ONE, AND COMPREHENDING A PROPOSAL OF MARRIAGE WITH NO WORD OF SETTLEMENT OR PIN-MONEY
• LII. FAGIN’S LAST NIGHT ALIVE
• LIII. AND LAST
• THE LIFE AND TIMES OF CHARLES DICKENS
• FURTHER READING