Debo decir que no es uno de mis clásicos favoritos, pero me gustó la prosa de Dickens y deseo continuar con las grandes novelas de este autor, como “Grandes esperanzas” e “Historia de dos ciudades”.

Depressing as expected despite the happy end. Dickens tried to soften the story of social injustice, violence and excruciation poverty behind subtle irony and humour, but it's still frightening and very naturalistic. Although the characters and some plot-lines may seem naive, the novel is a fine piece of classic still worthy to read.

Note, July 28, 2023: I've edited my review to add this link: https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/... to the first thread of an outstanding discussion of this novel in the Goodreads group Dickensians!, which includes a great deal of background material, illustrations, etc. It would be a wonderful resource for anyone reading the book, or who has read it and wants a deeper understanding. (Spoilers can easily be avoided, since it's structured chapter by chapter.)

Oliver Twist was the first Dickens novel I ever read (as an eight-year-old kid); it made an abiding impression on me, and created a lifelong interest in the author's work. (What I read was the printing in Dodd Mead's Great Illustrated Classics series, which uses the text of the 1841 edition --the book was published as a magazine serial in 1837-39, but first printed in a complete hardcover edition in 1838, before the serialization ended-- and includes Dicken's own Preface to it.) I eventually went on to read half a dozen more of his novels, some of them twice. In the cases of the other Dickens novels that I read as a kid or a very young man and haven't reviewed, I don't think I could do them justice without a reread. My reading of this one, though, fell on a young mind and imagination that was still pretty fallow, and created very vivid memories; and the child protagonist and the nature of the plot (which is more action-adventure oriented than some Dickens novels are) made this one more apt to impress itself on a young reader. So my memories of this book, like those of other classics I read at the same epoch of my reading life, are pretty clear. To be sure, my understanding of some aspects of the story at that age wasn't the same as an adult reader's would have been. (For instance, while I knew, from Dickens' reference to her in the Preface, that Nancy was Bill Sykes' "mistress," I didn't really know what that was, just that it was bad; so my comprehension of their relationship was decidedly limited. :-) ) But as I got older and learned more about life and history, I was able to bring the new knowledge to my memories of the book and deepen my understanding. IMO, I can do this tale reasonable justice in a review without a reread.

We first meet our title character as an infant newly born in a country workhouse, to an apparently unmarried mother who died in childbirth. The main body of the story picks up when he's nine, having been raised to that age in the dubious care of the parish charity system of that day. We then get a look at the life of orphans in the workhouse, at Oliver's unpleasant experiences farmed out as essentially the slave of a local undertaker, and (after his running away to London) at the noisome world of the great city's criminal underground. But there are other threads to the warp and woof of the plot as well, because an increasing web of mystery and intrigue surrounds his actual origins. How this plays out will ultimately tie in with his adventures in London.

This is only Dickens' second novel (and really the first in which he develops a continuous plot, rather than a series of episodes), but all of the characteristic features of his writing are here: his mastery of complicated plotting, his passion for social justice and converse hatred of cruelty and injustice, his warm human sympathy and appeal to a full range of emotions (he's a quintessentially Romantic writer, though of course at the age of eight I didn't know what that was), his wry humor, and above all his unequaled ability to create vivid and memorable characters --some of whom you'll love and some you'll detest. (There are plenty of them here, such as Fagin, Nancy, Mr. Bumble, the Artful Dodger, Bill Sykes, Mr. Grimwig who's forever rhetorically offering to eat his head; but really all of the significant characters here, even minor ones, are lifelike and drawn with great artistry.) Like all Victorian writers, he also writes with complex sentences and a hefty vocabulary. As a kid, I wasn't told that was supposed to bother and repulse me, so it didn't; I figured the range of linguistic possibilities existed for a purpose, and that complex sentences could be understood the same as simple ones. (Thankfully, that opened up a rich literary world to me!)

One of the more significant features of Dickens' work --and it's very noticeable here--that became more obvious to me, as I got older and reflected back on this book with an adult understanding, is the fact that he doesn't draw his characters only from the monied and refined strata of society. He depicts the poor and down-and-out of the Victorian world, and sometimes even those on the wrong side of the law, as much as the well-to-do; these characters can be central to the story and developed with great attention, rather than just part of the scenery and the furniture. They also make significant choices, including moral choices; and those that many prosperous Victorians looked down on as the dregs of society might make very positive moral choices, even at great cost. (And his understanding that positive moral choices are worth making, whoever you are, is crystal clear.) In other words, he writes about people, not just a certain class of people; and he's interested in who they are AS people, not just pigeon-holing them in categories based on how much they have in the bank.

If the novel has a literary flaw, it's perhaps that after he reaches London, Oliver tends to be a more passive protagonist than he is at the beginning; he's acted upon by others, and dragged around at their bidding, more than setting his own course. But this is realistic when you consider that he's a nine-year-old child, and not in much of a position to act independently; and he does make choices about how he acts, and what he won't do. Some readers and critics have accused Dickens (unfairly, I believe) of anti-Semitism because the only Jewish character here, Fagin, is a criminal with definite villainous qualities. However, Fagin isn't a villain because he's Jewish; he's an individual with bad qualities and who's made bad choices, who happens to be a member of an ethnic group which has the same range of moral possibilities --good and bad-- of any other ethnic group. In Dickens' own words "...it unfortunately was true, of the time to which the story refers, that that class of criminal almost invariably was a Jew.... [Dickens had researched the London underworld pretty extensively] "I have no feeling towards the Jews but a friendly one. I always speak well of them, whether in public or private, and bear my testimony (as I ought to do) to their perfect good faith in such transactions as I have ever had with them."

I'm glad this novel was my introduction to Dickens; I don't think I could have had any better one, or one that would have more whetted my interest in his work. It has my warmest recommendation!

It is hard to exit the original worlds created by Dickens. I usually manage it crying like a baby. Oliver Twist is top shelf storytelling. The characters are amazing. The setting is perfect. The plot manages to throw out hundreds of threads and ties them all together at the end, while never losing or boring the reader. Weakness? This is probably nit picking, but the story seems to work out too well in the end. Don't get me wrong, I know this is a social novel and FICTION, but I guess I just have a little bit of an issue with the whole melodramatic end, with every shoe finding a foot and every evil getting a noose. Other than that, Dickens shows with 'Oliver Twist' why he is/was the master and the giant of the social novel.

Another fantastic Dickens' novel! I am grateful to the Dickensians group for enhancing a deeper look at this work. RTC

I have let this sit for a little while trying to get my thoughts in order for a decent review on this wonderful multi-layered novel. I'm not sure I can accomplish it. but I will try and still keep it somewhat short.

Oliver Twist is a dark story but don't despair, there is redemption! At its most basic it is about good versus evil, love and betrayal. Oliver is the personification of innocence and goodness. Although he is the title character, I found he was more of a catalyst for the action of others around him than a character who embraced his own agency with a few exceptions such as the famous scene where he requests more food "please sir, I want some more"; & his decision to run away from the funeral home he was "sold" to from the workhouse. And I would say in the first example, Oliver didn't decide to take action himself, he drew the short straw among other boys to make this request.

Secrets abound starting from the moment he was born & continue throughout the novel. It is a complicated plot with a spiderweb of interconnections amongst the varied characters that the reader sometimes doesn't see coming. Perhaps because this was written in serial form & Dickens made it up as he went along without a full story arc vision.

Dickens was only 24 when he wrote this first novel, which is absolutely amazing to me, and he uses it to introduce to the reader what will become a hallmark in many of his novels. Social criticism. He highlights the social injustices especially those involving the poor and the assumptions that morality and class are coupled. The latter critique is fully realized in the wonderful, but sad character of Nancy.
I learned through the group that Fagin, the thieving & manipulative, self-serving character is referred throughout most of the novel as "the Jew". When the antisemitic portrayal was pointed out, later editions of the novel inserted Fagin's name to replace that identification. My edition apparently was a reprint from the original.

After this one chapter a day read from the group and reading a number of reviews, I hope I have not used someone's original thoughts on the book as all the discussion & reading has blurred together with my own. I apologize to anyone if I did. On the positive side, just think how much your words stayed with me!

***PLEASE NOTE:—

This is a review of the Norton Critical Edition. For my review of the text of “Oliver Twist: A Parish Boy’s Progress” please LINK HERE.

The Norton Critical Editions are excellent, and I was curious as to which edition of the text the editor Fred Kaplan would choose for Oliver Twist. Nowadays Oliver Twist is a favourite classic story, but when Dickens started to write it, he had no idea that it would be a novel. The story began as episodes of “The Parish Boys Progress by Boz”, a continuation of his serial “The Mudfog Papers” published in monthly installments from February 1837, in the popular magazine “Bentley’s Miscellany”. “Mudfog” was based on Chatham in Kent, his childhood home, and it was named in the first sentence of Oliver Twist. (However, Dickens was later to edit this to say: “a certain town … to which I will assign no fictitious name”, to fit in with later events in the story.)

At first, Dickens used to edit “Bentley’s Miscellany” as well as write some features for it. But relations between its owner Richard Bentley and Charles Dickens grew very strained, and the arguments between them increased as the summer went on. Tempers rose and reached fever pitch, until on 30th August 1837 Charles Dickens decided to write no more installments of Oliver Twist unless he was paid more money. For a while it looked as if this was as much of Oliver Twist as anyone would ever read! Charles Dickens was adamant, and there was a gap of two whole months while his readers waited with bated breath.

There seemed to be a stalemate, as Charles Dickens was by now in a serious dispute with his publisher, Richard Bentley. His friend John Forster had done his best to help resolve the situation, and now his illustrator George Cruikshank was trying to mediate too. On 16th September Charles Dickens additionally threatened to resign the editorship of “Bentley’s Miscellany”. But on 28th September Richard Bentley backed down, and signed a revised contract, agreeing to give Charles Dickens £500 extra for each of the two novels he was under contract to write.

So it is only down to John Forster’s diplomatic skills that we can read the rest of Oliver Twist at all. Otherwise we would just have had the first 7 installments (16 chapters). In fact Charles Dickens had to ask Bentley for spare copies of the magazines, so that he could reread the first few chapters of Oliver Twist and remind himself of what had happened. Chapter 17 begins very strangely with a defence of his writing, and what seems like almost two pages of apologia for the “sudden shiftings of the scene, and rapid changes of time and place”. (Critics refer to this as the "streaky bacon" account). At this point Dickens virtually restarts the story, back at the workhouse, where it had begun. Only now did Dickens know that these episodes must be turned into a novel, and that he would develop the story for 35 more chapters.

There were yet more difficulties as time went on too, as Dickens was desperate to “burst the Bentleian bonds” as he put it. He decided to complete Oliver Twist quickly, and issue it in book form before the serial was finished in the magazine. So he raced to finish the story, providing incredibly convoluted explanations in the closing chapters for the various events. Then he published it as three volumes in November 1838—under his own name for the first time, rather than “Boz”—very probably as another snub to Bentley.

It is not surprising therefore, with all the hiccups, false starts and a rush at the end, that over the next few years Dickens would be dissatisfied. He tweaked his novel half a dozen times in the first couple of years, republishing each time, (although much of this has been lost) and trying to resolve the structural difficulties that had been forced on him by circumstances. Writers of serial fiction always had the problem that what they had written could not be changed, but this was an extreme case.

Charles Dickens’s final edits were in 1867, just 3 years before he died. However, the Norton Critical edition has gone with the 1846 text, the last edition of the novel which was substantially revised by Dickens, and the one that is said to most clearly reflect his authorial intentions. A selection of just three out of George Cruikshank’s original 24 steel etchings accompany the text.

The best editions of Dickens novels contain his Preface(s) plus perhaps a critical introduction and a few footnotes. This has all that, but the text still only takes about half the book. There is then over 250 pages of extra material. This begins with a map of Oliver’s London—not one purporting to show his locations—but a straightforward double spread of central London in 1837.

The section titled “Backgrounds and Sources” focuses on The Poor Law Amendment Act of 1834, which was central both to Dickens and to the characters in Oliver Twist. The act’s far-reaching implications are discussed in articles that include parlimentary debates on The Poor Laws, a harrowing account of an 1835 Bedfordshire riot, and “An Appeal to Fallen Women”, Dickens’s 1847 open letter to London’s prostitutes which urged them to turn their backs on “debauchery and neglect”.

It is possible to trace how Oliver Twist evolved, by means of a chart tabling Dickens’s differing installments and chapter divisions in various editions over the years. Using this one can compare texts, to see the extra paragraphs and titles he wrote. Burton M. Wheeler goes into this in more detail in his essay, later in the book.

There are ten letters on Oliver Twist, all of which were written between 1837 and 1864. They include those to the novel’s publisher (Bentley), the novel’s illustrator (Cruikshank), and the writer John Forster, (Dickens’s close friend and future biographer). Also included is “Sikes and Nancy”, Dickens’s rewritten reading copy which he composed in order to perform to large audiences at public readings in the last few year of his life, sometimes several times a week.

The “Early Reviews” section provides eight witty, insightful, and at times very strongly expressed responses to both the novel and Oliver’s plight, by William Makepeace Thackeray and others, including John Forster (anonymously).

We then have a section titled “Criticism” which lifts this edition of Oliver Twist head and shoulders above any other. Included here are the cream of the Dickensian scholars who have written specifically about Oliver Twist; twenty of the most significant interpretations which have been published over the years. There are essays by Henry James, George Gissing, Graham Greene, J. Hillis Miller, Harry Stone, Philip Collins, John Bayley, Keith Hollingsworth, Steven Marcus, Monroe Engel, James R. Kincaid, Michael Slater, Dennis Walder, Burton M. Wheeler, Janet Larson, Fred Kaplan, Robert Tracy, David Miller, John O. Jordan, and Gary Wills. These are a rare treat. It is difficult to pick any out for special mention. All of these authors are Dickensian scholars, and some have written full biographies about him. Michael Slater’s, from 2009, is still considered by many to be the best since that of Peter Ackroyd’s whopping 2000 one of well over a thousand pages, with Claire Tomalin’s shorter and slightly later one from in 2011 in its shadow.

However these essays concentrate on specific aspects of Oliver Twist. One interesting focus is shed by John Bayley, in “Things as They Really Are”. Building on the novel’s allegorical aspect, he explores the idea of daydreams as being part of our essential double nature. The goodness of Mr. Brownlow’s world and the evil of Fagin’s, he maintains: “coexist in consciousness, they are two sides of the same coin of fantasy, not two real places that exist separately in life”. He says that they appeal to our fantasies; our ideals of how they should be. We therefore want Oliver to be confronted by terrible situations, because we want him to fight and overcome them. “"Dickens villains have the unexpungable nature of our own nightmares and our own consciousness ... We shrink from the fate, and desire it”.

In “Oliver Twist and Christian Scripture” Janet Larson analyses Oliver Twist’s many biblical references, both overt and hidden, whereas David Miller writes a detailed factual piece about the police and how the law affect the events in the book. John O. Jordan's fascinating essay is titled “The Purloined Hankerchief”. It is about the cultural early Victorian mores, and the symbolism of handkerchiefs throughout the novel, from Bill Sikes’s “dirty belcher handkerchief” (named after a famous boxer, James Belcher)—through Mr. Bumble’s two handkerchiefs: one workmanlike one he keeps under his hat, and a dainty one for show, to spread on his knees when he is taking tea with Mrs. Corney—and on to Rose Maylie’s lace-edged one  given on request to Nancy, who holds it aloft to heaven at the time of her brutal murder. All the essays are excellent, and I was so impressed with Fred Kaplan’s, that I tracked down a rare book he had written on Dickens and Mesmerism, and have been engrossed in it ever since!

A Chronology and Selected Bibliography are also included in the final pages.

It feels extraordinary to me to recommend an American edition of a work by one of our greatest English authors, but there is no question that leaving the small print size aside, this is the one I prefer. (For personal reasons, I use a Large Print one for the text itself, and use magnifiers for this.) Yes, England has more than one Oxford Edition, Penguin, Collins, Clarendon and many others, but none can compare with the scholarly bounty of the Norton Critical Edition.

Dincolo de poveste sărmanului Oliver, romanul este o cronică a lumii interlope a Londrei, plină de personaje dubioase, de o răutate cruntă. Ceea ce m-a frapat este ușurința cu care se "făcea"justiție în aceea epocă.

Oh my, Oliver Twist was the debut novel of Charles Dickens as it grabbed my heart and wouldn't let go. I can only imagine being in England as the installments of this beautiful book were published in a serial when Dickens had agreed to assume the editorship of Bentley's Miscellany, commencing in February 1837, and continuing each month until March 1839 when the last serial installment of Oliver Twist was published. It would be very difficult to wait for that extended period of time to find out the fate of Oliver. I will admit, I just stormed through this book with many tears. Another advantage of not living in Victorian England although I must admit that the glamour of the gaslights and the art and music and dress is a temptation.

But this is such a very heartbreaking tale and I think in the hands of anyone but Charles Dickens, with his immense heart and empathy, it would have fallen flat, and that may be the genius of this gifted author that today he is just as relevant as he was in Victorian England. Born in a workhouse, Oliver Twist struggled to breathe, and sneezed, announcing to the workhouse that a new burden had been imposed upon the parish.

n  

"Oliver cried lustily. If he could have known that he was an orphan, left to the tender mercies of church-wardens and overseerers, perhaps he would have cried the louder."

n

As Oliver tries to cope and survive in the parochial system with ragged clothes and never enough food, the years pass until he is nine years old and it is believed that it is time for him to become an apprentice. It is here that we begin to comprehend the tragedy of this young life.

n  

"He cried bitterly all day; and when the long, dismal night came on, he spread his little hands before his eyes to shut out the darkness, and crouching in the corner, he tried to sleep: ever and anon waking with a start and a tremble, and drawing himself closer and closer to the wall, as if to feel its cold hard surface were a protection in the gloom and loneliness which surrounded him."

n

n  

". . . and happening in the course of his search to look straight before him, his gaze encountered the pale and terrified face of Oliver Twist: who, despite all the admonitory looks and pinches of Bumble, was regarding the repulsive countenance of his future master, with a mingled expression of horror and fear, too palpable to be mistaken, even by a half-blind magistrate."

n

This is suspenseful and a classic that can't be overlooked. I am now trying to read all of Charles Dickens works in chronological order. What a wonderful beginning.

Άλλο ένα βιβλίο που ξαναδιάβασα μετά από πάρα πολλά χρόνια. Ήταν κι αυτό ένα τσεκ για να ξέρω πότε θα το πασάρω στα δικά μου παιδιά... και μάλλον θα το κάνω όταν δεν θα είναι παιδιά.

Δεν μπορώ να καταλάβω γιατί βάζουμε στα παιδιά να διαβάζουν βιβλία με τέτοια περίπλοκα νοήματα. Δεν τα πολυκαταλαβαίνουν και τζάμπα τα ζορίζουμε. Επίσης, μιλώντας για Ντίκενς, τζάμπα τους κόβουμε και το χαμόγελο. Θλίψη, κακοποίηση, θάνατοι... ένα σωρό πράγματα υπάρχουν στις σελίδες των συγγραμμάτων του.

Κατά τα άλλα, το βιβλίο είναι φυσικά εξαιρετικό. Γράφτηκε το 1838 και πολλά από τα νοήματα με τα οποία καταπιάνεται παραμένουν επίκαιρα. Από εκεί και πέρα, νομίζω ότι οποιαδήποτε άλλη λεπτομέρεια γι' αυτό είναι περιττή, αφού είναι πασίγνωστο.

-Υποσημείωση, η έκδοση που έχω εγώ δεν είναι αυτή αλλά η ''παιδική''. (Άντε πάλι). Αν θυμάμαι καλά τώρα, που δεν το έχω μπροστά μου, πρέπει να είναι κοντά στις 220 σελίδες.

I have seen the 1968 academy award winning musical film “Oliver!” so many times that we eventually just bought the DVD.

David Lean’s 1948 film starring Alec Guinness as Fagan and Robert Newton as Bill Sykes is another favorite.

These film adaptations are so ubiquitous and so endearing that it is easy to forget what a rare accomplishment was Dickens original novel. One of Dickens earliest novels and like most was first published as a series of installments, Oliver Twist begins Dickens brilliant career of creating memorable characters and of describing some of his most universal themes such as orphanage, poverty, and juvenile perseverance and nobility while at the same time ruthlessly satirizing adult evils and social ills.

Oliver Twist introduces readers to some of the most recognizable characters in all of literature including Fagan, Bill Sykes and the Artful Dodger.

** 2018 - Then winter seems like a great time to read Dickens as the long nights and cold days seem to engender a feeling of those Victorian times. One character that I frequently recall from this book is Nancy, Bill Sykes unfortunate victim. Dickens introduces her as "A couple of young ladies called to see the young gentlemen; one of whom was named Bet, and the other Nancy. They wore a good deal of hair, not very neatly turned up behind, and were rather untidy about the shoes and stockings. They were not exactly pretty, perhaps; but they had a great deal of colour in their faces, and looked quite stout and hearty."

It is Nancy's protection of Oliver, and her subsequent condemnation by Fagin and then Sykes that forms Dickens' most compelling scenes.

In response to an apparent Victorian pearl-clutching occasion in the years following the release of Oliver Twist, Charles Dickens found it necessary to offer a retort. Here is some of what he wrote in 1867:

Once Upon a time it was held to be a coarse and shocking circumstance, that some of the characters in these pages are chosen from the most criminal and degraded of London's population...

The cold wet shelterless streets of London; the foul and frowsy dens, where vice is closely packed and lacks the room to turn; the haunts of hunger and disease; the shabby rags that scarcely hold together; where are the attractions of these things?...

There are people, however, of so refined and delicate a nature, that they cannot bear the contemplation of such horrors. Not that they turn instinctively away from crime, but that criminal characters, to suit them, must be, like their meat, in delicate disguise...

It involves the best and worst shades of our nature; much of its ugliest hues, and something of its most beautiful; it is a contradiction, an anomaly, an apparent impossibility; but it is a truth. I am glad to have had it doubted, for in that circumstance I should find a sufficient assurance (if I wanted any) that it needed to be told.

I am not shocked that at least someone was offended by Oliver Twist (is there not always one person?), but I am greatly encouraged that said offense did not ruffle Dickens--it merely emboldened him of the necessity of the Parish Boy's Progress. As for me, I wish some wise soul had thrust this novel into my hands and slammed the "stop" button of the VCR with great alacrity to grind to a halt that silly little musical interpretation--I would have been a Dickens disciple much sooner. Excellent, timeless work from the man from Portsmouth.

The following is a tribute to Nancy, the heart and soul of the book.

"Isn't there anybody here," she said, looking round, "that will see a simple message carried for a poor wretch like me?"

Charles Dickens was an amazing writer, but the title of this book should have been The Friends and Acquaintances of Oliver Twist.
Oliver plays a minor role in this classic tale, in which, it's the people who affect his life that are the major focus.
Still, glad I finally read this very good piece of literature.