Oliver Twist
Edition: Reprint with revised Dickens chronology (001)
Series: Penguin Classics
Publisher: Penguin Books
Published: 2012
Place of publication: London
Language: eng
Format: paperback
Number of pages: 554
ISBN-13: 9780141392127
Copyright date: 2003
Description: The story of the orphan Oliver, who runs away from the workhouse, only to be taken in by a den of thieves, shocked readers when it was first published. Dickens's tale of childhood innocence beset by evil depicts the dark criminal underworld of a London peopled by vivid and memorable characters — the arch-villain Fagin, the artful Dodger, the menacing Bill Sikes and the prostitute Nancy. Combining elements of Gothic romance, the Newgate novel and popular melodrama, in Oliver Twist Dickens created an entirely new kind of fiction, scathing in its indictment of a cruel society, and pervaded by an unforgettable sense of threat and mystery.

This is the first critical edition to use the serial text of 1837—9, presenting Oliver Twist as it appeared to its earliest readers. It includes Dickens's 1841 introduction and 1850 preface, the original illustrations and a glossary of contemporary slang.

'The power of [Dickens] is so amazing, that the reader at once becomes his captive' WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY

Edited with an introduction and notes by PHILIP HORNE