Oliver Twist

Charles Dickens

• Publisher: Race Point Publishing
• Year: 2015
• ISBN:
  9781627886772
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Classics
• Index: Literature

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...