
Wordsworth Collector's Editions
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‘He was badged
and ticketed, and fell into place at once – a parish child – the orphan of the
workhouse – the humble, half-starved
drudge- to be cuffed and buffeted through the world- despised by all, and
pitied by none.’
Oliver Twist or the Parish Boy’s Progress was Charles Dickens’ second novel, written
when he was only twenty five. For such an early work it is a remarkably
accomplished and sophisticated novel. It was published in serial form in monthly instalments in
the magazine Bentley's Miscellany, from February 1837 to April 1839.
Readers waited avidly for the next episode in the story,
which partly accounts for the fact that each chapter ends with a ‘cliff-hanger’
to hold the reader's interest until the following month.
Oliver
Twist is an orphan, born in a workhouse and sold into
apprenticeship with an undertaker who treats him
badly. After escaping, he travels to London, where he meets Jack Dawkins, an
expert pickpocket known as the ‘Artful Dodger’. Dawkins is a member of
a gang of juvenile pickpockets led by the elderly criminal, Fagin who enlists the young
Oliver into his gang of thieves. It is through Fagin that Oliver encounters one
of Dickens’ most gruesome villains, Bill Sikes.
The novel is notable for its unromantic portrayal of criminals and
their sordid lives, as well as for exposing the cruel treatment of the many
orphans in London in the mid-19th century. Dickens not only wished
to entertain his readers but also to inform them also of the terrible
conditions children like Oliver had to endure. Dickens believed that the novel should be directed toward
social reform. However it is wrong to think that he was a propagandist who held
idealistic goals as cures for the ills of the world. While he used
his novel to point out truths about the corrupt and failing institutions of Victorian
England that polite society tried to ignore and exposed the injustice
and wretchedness inflicted by them, he did not suggest solutions for their
failings.
In Oliver Twist Dickens’ main
weapon is satire and in this novel he satirises the hypocrisies of his time,
including child labour and the recruitment and corruption of children as
criminals. His brutal exposure of society’s failings did not always please
those in authority. After reading the novel Lord Melbourne, the
Prime Minister at the time, protested, ‘It is all among workhouses and
pickpockets and coffin makers. I do not like those things: I wish to
avoid them. I do not like them in reality and therefore do not like to
see them represented.’
The novel may have been inspired by the story of Robert Blincoe, an orphan whose account
of working as a child labourer in a cotton mill was widely read in the 1830s.
It is likely that Dickens's own youthful experiences may have also influenced
the tale. His father John Dickens was incarcerated in a debtor’s prison. As
a result, the family sent young Charles to work in a blacking or shoe-polish
factory where he suffered the harsh conditions similar to those of Oliver Twist.
Dickens was deeply marked by these experiences and rarely spoke of this time of
his life. It is interesting to note that while employed at the factory he
encountered a fellow worker by the name Bob Fagin whose name he used as one of
the villains in Oliver Twist.
The novel was a great success, building on the success
of his first book, The Pickwick Papers
(1836), firmly establishing Dickens’ reputation as a major novelist. Within a few years he
had become an international literary celebrity, famous for his humour, satire,
and keen observation of character and society.
Oliver Twist has been the
subject of numerous adaptations for various media. Perhaps the greatest and
most faithful interpretation of the novel is the 1948 British movie directed by
David Lean. This beautifully photographed film captures the bleak brutality of
the narrative and allowed Alec Guinness to give one of his greatest screen
performances as Fagin.
One might think that this story as being unlikely
material for a musical play, but Lionel Bart had other ideas. He wrote the
music and lyrics to Oliver!, which
premiered in the West End in 1960, enjoying a long run in London and later on
Broadway. The plot of original novel was considerably simplified for the
purposes of the musical, with Fagin being
represented more as a comic character than as a heartless villain. A film
version appeared in 1968 starring Ron Moody, the original stage Fagin.
In 1997 there
was an American made-for-television film from the Disney studio starring Richard Dreyfus as Fagin. Master Twist
hit the big screen again in 2005 in a version directed by Roman Polanski and
starring Ben Kingsley as Fagin. The film received positive reviews. A. O. Scott of The New York Times called it a ‘bracingly
old-fashioned’ film that ‘does not embalm its source with fussy reverence’ but
‘rediscovers its true and enduring vitality.’
Indeed, the story certainly has ‘enduring vitality’. The richness of the
prose and the skilful delineation of character are powerful elements which
have ensured that the book has never been out of print. If you have never read
it, now is the time to rectify that failure!
Quite recently I have involved myself in the world of Dickens’ orphan hero
in my new novel, Oliver Twist and The
Mystery of Throate Manor, Urbane Publications. In this story we find Oliver
is now a young man in his late twenties and working as a solicitor. He has
encountered his old associate Jack Dawkins, aka the Artful Dodger, who is still
a bit of a rogue. Oliver takes Dawkins under his wing as his clerk in an attempt to
civilise him and keep him out of trouble. Together they become embroiled in a
dark and dangerous murder mystery.
Dickens’ characters, like Oliver Twist, are so vibrant and memorable that they continue to fascinate well over a hundred years since they were created.
[Pictured above, John Howard Davies as Oliver Twist and Robert Newton as Bill Sikes in David Lean's 1946 film]
Details of David's new novel can be found here:
https://urbanepublications.com/books/oliver-twist-and-the-mystery-of-throate-manor/