Oliver TwistThis fiercely comic tale stands in marked contrast to its genial predecessor, The Pickwick Papers. Set against London's seedy back street slums, Oliver Twist is the saga of a workhouse orphan captured and thrust into a thieves' den, where some of Dickens's most depraved villains preside: the incorrigible Artful Dodger, the murderous bully Sikes, and the terrible Fagin, that treacherous ringleader whose grinning knavery threatens to send them all to the "ghostly gallows." Yet at the heart of this drama is the orphan Oliver, whose unsullied goodness leads him at last to salvation. In 1838 the publication of Oliver Twist firmly established the literary eminence of young Dickens. It was, according to Edgar Johnson, "a clarion peal announcing to the world that in Charles Dickens the rejected and forgotten and misused of the world had a champion." |
Contents
CHAPTER I | 1 |
CHAPTER III | 14 |
CHAPTER IV | 23 |
CHAPTER V | 30 |
CHAPTER VI | 41 |
Oliver walks to London He encounters on the road | 53 |
CHAPTER IX | 62 |
CHAPTER X | 68 |
CHAPTER XXVII | 207 |
CHAPTER XXIX | 224 |
CHAPTER XXXI | 235 |
CHAPTER XXXII | 246 |
CHAPTER XXXIII | 255 |
Contains some introductory particulars relative | 264 |
CHAPTER XXXV | 274 |
CHAPTER XXXVI | 282 |
CHAPTER XII | 81 |
CHAPTER XIII | 91 |
CHAPTER XIV | 99 |
CHAPTER XV | 110 |
CHAPTER XVI | 116 |
Olivers destiny continuing unpropitious brings | 126 |
CHAPTER XVIII | 136 |
CHAPTER XIX | 144 |
CHAPTER XX | 154 |
CHAPTER XXI | 162 |
CHAPTER XXII | 168 |
CHAPTER XXIII | 175 |
CHAPTER XXIV | 183 |
CHAPTER XXVI | 195 |
CHAPTER XXXIX | 306 |
CHAPTER XL | 320 |
CHAPTER XLI | 327 |
CHAPTER XLII | 337 |
CHAPTER XLIII | 348 |
CHAPTER XLIV | 358 |
CHAPTER XLV | 365 |
CHAPTER XLVII | 379 |
CHAPTER XLVIII | 386 |
CHAPTER XLIX | 395 |
CHAPTER LI | 416 |
CHAPTER LII | 429 |
Bibliography | 443 |
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Common terms and phrases
Artful Dodger asked beadle Bedwin Bill Bill Sikes Blathers Bolter Brittles Brownlow Bumble Bumble's chair Charles Dickens Charley Bates Charlotte Chertsey child Chitling Claypole Corney cried dark dear Dickens doctor Dodger door exclaimed eyes face Fyodor Dostoevsky Gamfield Giles glance Grimwig hand head hear heard heart inquired Jacob's Island John Dawkins laugh Little Dorrit looked Losberne ma'am Mann Master Bates matron Maylie mind Monks morning Nancy never night Noah old gentleman old lady Oliver Twist Oliver's once Pickwick Papers pocket poor porochial rejoined replied Fagin replied Oliver replied Sikes replied the Jew Rose Rose Maylie round seemed smile Sowerberry speak stairs stopped street tears tell there's thing thought Toby Crackit took turned voice waistcoat walked What's whispered window woman words workhouse young lady