Oliver Twist (Hardcover) Charles Dickens

Charles Dickens (1812-1870) was an English writer and social commentator, who is regarded as the finest novelist of the Victorian-era. He was an exceptional creator of character, perhaps second only to Shakespeare.

Through his novels, he fiercely criticised the poverty and social stratification of Victorian society. He had to leave school to work ten-hour days in a factory when his father was incarcerated in a debtor’s prison. In spite of his lack of formal education, he went on to become a literary juggernaut and achieved world-wide fame within his lifetime.

Oliver Twist, which was serialised from 1837 to 1839 and published as a book in 1838, is Charles Dickens’ second novel. The novel chronicles the journey of Oliver Twist, a child born in a workhouse, his subsequent sale as an apprentice to an undertaker, and his escape to London to join a gang of child pickpockets. It used an entirely new form of storytelling, a scathing social commentary in the form of fiction, utilising an unforgettable cast of curious characters, supported by an omnipresent undercurrent of lurking mystery and adventure.

Foremost among early social novels, in it Dickens combines his merciless wit with blatant realism to shed light on the wretched condition of thousands of innocent orphans, like Oliver, to whom the only options seem to be a life of criminal association, the prison or premature death. A vivid and stark painting of Victorian London’s dark and impoverished underworld, it was Dickens’ first novel that illustrated his belief that impoverishment is the root of criminal motives.

June 2023