Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens

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.

Charles Dickens was born in Portsea, England in 1812. With The Pickwick Papers, he achieved immediate fame; in a few years, he was the most popular and respected author of his time. Oliver Twist, Nicholas Nickleby, and The Old Curiosity Shop were all huge successes for Dickens. A Christmas Carol, Bleak House, and Hard Times reveal his deepening concern for the injustices of British society, while A Tale of Two Cities and Great Expectations complete his major works. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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
……