A little boy creeps through this book, an orphan, a waif, an outcast. He is a puling, teary little fellow, never rebellious for more than a few minutes, and seldom even angry. He is a perfect little gentleman who has managed somehow to come into the world, and the novel, with a fmished code of morality. The wickedness of the world never stains him. Through all his wanderings in "foul and frowzy dens, where vice is closely packed"--as Dickens puts it in his preface to the novel's third edition--Oliver maintains a sublime loyalty to English grammar. Starved, beaten, terrorized, kidnapped, he is nevertheless unwilling to resort to the foul language or gutter slang it may be reasonable to suppose he has heard in the slums of London.

This fiercely comic second novel stands in marked contrast to its genial predecessor, The Pickwick Papers. Set against London's seedy backstreet 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 "ghastly 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 the 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."

Introduction by Irving Howe

Preface

Characters

CHAPTER I

 Treats of the place where Oliver Twist was born,and of the circumstances attending his birth

CHAPTER II

 Treats of Oliver Twist's growth, education, and board

CHAPTER III

 Relates how Oliver Twist was very near getting a place,which would not have been a sinecure

CHAPTER IV

 Oliver, being offered another place, makes his first entry into public life

CHAPTER V

 Oliver mingles with new associates. Going to a funeral for the first time, he forms an unfavourable notion of his master's business

CHAPTER VI

 Oliver, being goaded by the taunts of Noah, rouses into action, and rather astonishes him

CHAPTER VII

 Oliver continues refactory

CHAPTER VIII

 Oliver walks to London. He encounters on the road a strange sort of young gentleman

CHAPTER IX

 Containing further particulars concerning the pleasant old gentleman, and his hopeful pupils

CHAPTER X

 Oliver becomes better acquainted with the characters of his new associates; and purchases experience at a high price. Being a short, but very important chapter,in this history

CHAPTER XI

 Treats of Mr. Fang the police magistrate; and furnishes a slight specimen of his mode of administering justice

CHAPTER XII

 In which Oliver is taken better care of than he ever was before. And in which the narrative reverts to the merry old gentleman and his youthful friends

CHAPTER XIII

 Some new acquaintances are introduced to the intelligent reader; connected with whom various pleasant matters are related, appertaining to this history

CHAPTER XIV

 Comprising further particulars of Oliver's stay at Mr. Brownlow's, with the remarkable prediction which one Mr. Grimwig uttered concerning him,when he went out on an errand

CHAPTER XV

 Showing how very fond of Oliver Twist the merry old Jew and Miss Nancy were

CHAPTER XVI

 Relates what became of Oliver Twist after he had been claimed by Nancy

CHAPTER XVII

 Oliver's destiny continuing unpropitious, brings a great man to London to injure his reputation

CHAPTER XVIII

 How Oliver passed his time in the improving society of his reputable friends

CHAPTER XIX

 In which a notable plan is discussed and determined on

CHAPTER XX

 Wherein Oliver is delivered over to Mr. William Sikes

CHAPTER XXI

 The Expedition

CHAPTER XXII

 The Burglary

CHAPTER XXIII

 Which contains the substance of a pleasant conversation between Mr. Bumble and a lady; and shows that even a beadle may be susceptible on some points

CHAPTER XXIV

 Treats of a very poor subject. But is a short one, and may be found of importance in this history

CHAPTER XXV

 Wherein this history reverts to Mr. Fagin and company

CHAPTER XXVI

 In which a mysterious character appears upon the scene;and many things, inseparable from this history,are done and performed

CHAPTER XXVII

 Atones for the unpoliteness of a former chapter;which deserted a lady, most unceremoniously

CHAPTER XXVIII

 Looks after Oliver, and proceeds with his adventures

CHAPTER XXIX

 Has an introductory account of the inmates of the house to which Oliver resorted

CHAPTER XXX

 Relates what Oliver's new visitors thought of him

CHAPTER XXXI

 Involves a critical position

CHAPTER XXXII

 Of the happy life Oliver began to lead with his kind friends

CHAPTER XXXIII

 Wherein the happiness of Oliver and his friends experiences a sudden check

CHAPTERXXXIV

 Contains some introductory particulars relative to a young gentleman who now arrives upon the scene;and a new adventure which happened to Oliver

CHAPTER XXXV

 Containing the unsatisfactory result of Oliver's adventure;and a conversation of some importance between Harry Maylie and Rose

CHAPTER XXXVI

 Is a very short one, and may appear of no great importance in its place. But it should be read, notwithstanding,as a sequel to the last, and a key to one that will follow when its time arrives

CHAPTER XXXVII

 In which the reader may perceive a contrast, not uncommon in matrimonial cases

CHAPTER XXXVIII

 Containing an account of what passed between Mr. and Mrs. Bumble, and Mr. Monks, at their nocturnal interview

CHAPTER XXXIX

 Introduces some respectable characters with whom the reader is already acquainted, and shows how Monks and the Jew laid their worthy heads together

CHAPTER XL

 A strange interview, which is a sequel to the last chapter

CHAPTER XLI

 Containing fresh discoveries, and showing that surprises,like misfortunes, seldom come alone

CHAPTER XLII

 An old acquaintance of Oliver's, exhibiting decided marks of genius, becomes a public character in the metropolis

CHAPTER XLIII

 Wherein is shown how the Artful Dodger got into trouble

CHAPTER XLIV

 The time arrives for Nancy to redeem her pledge to Rose Maylie. She fails '

CHAPTER XLV

 Noah Claypole is employed by Fagin on a secret mission

CHAPTER XLVI

 The appointment kept

CHAPTER XLVII

 Fatal consequences

CHAPTER XLVIII

 The flight of Sikes

CHAPTER XLIX

 Monks and Mr. Brownlow at length meet. Their conversation,and the intelligence that interrupts it

CHAPTER L

 The pursuit and escape

CHAPTER LI

 Affording an explanation of more mysteries than one,and comprehending a proposal of marriage with no word of settlement or pin-money

CHAPTER LII

 Fagin's last night alive

CHAPTER LIII

 And last

Bibliography