This fiercely comic second novel stands in marked contrast to its genial predecessor,THE PICKWICK PAPERS.Set against London's seedy back streef slums,OLIVER TWIST is the saga of a workhouse orphan capfured and fhrust info a fhieves'den,where some of Dickens's most depraved villains preside:the incorrigeble 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 ft the heart of this drama is the orphan Oliver,whose unsullied goodness leads him at last to salvation.

This fiercely comic second novel stands in marked contrast to its genial predecessor,THE PICKWICK PAPERS.Set against London's seedy back streef slums,OLIVER TWIST is the saga of a workhouse orphan capfured and fhrust info a fhieves'den,where some of Dickens's most depraved villains preside:the incorrigeble 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 ft the heart of this drama is the orphan Oliver,whose unsullied goodness leads him at last to salvation.This fiercely comic second novel stands in marked contrast to its genial predecessor,THE PICKWICK PAPERS.Set against London's seedy back streef slums,OLIVER TWIST is the saga of a workhouse orphan capfured and fhrust info a fhieves'den,where some of Dickens''s most depraved villains preside:the incorrigeble 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 ft the heart of this drama is the orphan Oliver,whose unsullied goodness leads him at last to salvation.

Introduction by Irving Howe

Preface

Characters

1 Treats of the place where Oliver Twist was born;and of the circumstances

attending his birth

2 Treats of Oliver Twist's growth,eduction,and board

3 Relates how Oliver Twist was very ncar gctting a place,which would not have been

a sinecure

4 Oliver,being offeed another place,makes his first entry into pulic life

5 Oliver mingles with new associates.Going to a funeral for the first time,he forms

an unfavourable notion of his master's business

6 Oliver,being goded by the taunts of Noah,rouses into action,and rather astonishes

him

7 Oliver contnues refuactory

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

9 Containing further particulars concerning the pleasant old gentleman,and his

hopeful pupils

10 Oliver becomes better acquainted with the characters of this new associates;and

purchases experience at ahigh price.Being a short,but very important chapter,in

this history

11 Treats of Mr.Fang the police magistrate;and furnishes a slight specimcn of his

mode of administering justice

12 In which Oliver is taken better care of than he ever was before.And in which the

narative reverts to the merry old gentleman and his youthful friends

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