Oliver Twist (1837) (edit title/settings)

Ridiculously Simplified Synopsis edit see section history

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Summary edit see section history

Characters edit see section history

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• Oliver Twist: Being the subject and protagonist of this biography. He is a kind-hearted poor boy, who would have been a wonderful chap if in a different situation. As it is, though, he is an orphan, and so subject to the cruelty of the streets.
• Mr. Fagin: Throughout the novel he is referred to as "The Jew." He takes charge of Oliver when the Artful Dodger introduces them. Fagin teaches Oliver to pick pocket. He is also noted as a symbol of the devil, with his red hair, and ugly features. Fagin is lazy, yet clever, and never does his own dirty work.
• The Artful Dodger: Also known as Jack Dawkins, Oliver's newly-found friend is a good kid who seems to have grown up too fast. He is well-mannered and dressed.
• Mr. William Sikes: Another antagonist of the novel, although he comes in later in the book. He seems to be whom Nancy loves, although he abuses and neglects her.
• Master Charles Bates: One of Fagin's pickpocket thieves. He is the Dodger's right hand man, and very humorous. Charley is also loyal to Fagin for the same reason and the Dodger.
• Rose Maylie: An orphan raised by Mrs Maylie
• Mr. Bumble: Church Beadle, owner of the poor house that Oliver works in. Very mean to orphans, but respected by adults.
• Mrs. Bumble: Originally introduced as Ms. Corney until she marries Bumble. She learns a secret about Oliver's past and work with Monks to cover those tracks.
• Mr. Noah Claypole: Add a description of this character.
• Dick
• Miss Nancy: Bill Sike's abused girlfriend, who is a local pickpocket and no stranger to the tavern.
• Bet: Nancy's best friend who is several years younger than her. She longs to be just like Nancy when she grows up.
• Mr. Brownlow: A kind man, who unlike many in this story, wants to help Oliver on his journey.
• Mr. Sowerberry: An undertaker who takes in Oliver as an apprentice
• Mr. Losberne: Country doctor; friend of the Maylie's.
• Mrs. Maylie: a friend of Oliver
• Mr. Monks: a mysterious man
• Mr Grimwig: Mr. Brownlow's friend. He has strang habits, but is good.
• Charlotte: A servant who works for Mr. Sowerberry.
• Mr. Toby Crackit: One of Fagin's gang members.
• Little Dick: A boy at the work farm, whom Oliver bides farewell to before leaving for London. Later, Dick asks to have a message given to Oliver.
• Mr. Chitling: One of Fagin's gang members.
• Mr. Gamfield: A cruel chimney sweep who was very close to owning Oliver.
• Mr. Brittles: Servant to the Maylies.
• Mr. Limbkins: One of the council members of the parish.
• Mr. Duff
• Agnes Fleming: Oliver's mother, who died after giving birth to him.
• Mr. Giles: Mrs. Maylie’s loyal, though somewhat pompous, butler.
• Bull's-Eye: Bill Sikes' dog
• Mrs Mann: She raises the orphans on a parish farm.
• Old Sally: A nurse in the workhouse.
• Mrs. Sowerberry: The wife of the undertaker.
• Harry Maylie: Mrs. Maylie's son.
• Mrs. Bedwin: Mr. Brownlow's housekeeper.
• Mrs. Corney: Runs an orphanage.
• Mr. Charles Bates
• Mr. Fang
• Oliver White: Oliver is an orphaned boy who struggles to find peace and love in the relationships he builds after leaving his orphanage.
• Miss Betsy
• Bister Sikes
• Barney
• Tommy Chitling
• Faguey
• Phil Barker
• Conkey Chickweed
• Mr. Blathers
• gammon
• Mr. Chickweed
• Jem Spyers
• Wery
• Miss Maylie
• Mr. Maylie
• Damme
• ould Fagin
• Nance
• Mr. Morris Bolter
• Mrs. Bolter
• Jew
• Mr. Kags
• Edward Leeford
• Rose Fleming
• Mr. John Dawkins

Quotes edit see section history

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• “Please, sir, I want some more.”

  Oliver Twist

• “The eyes!”

  Bill Sikes

• “We need to be careful how we deal with those about us, when every death carries to some small circle of survivors, thoughts of so much omitted and so little done—of so many things forgotten and so many more things which might have been repaired! There is no remorse so deep as that which is unavailing; if we would be spared its tortures, let us remember this in time.”

  Charles Dickens

• “I have said that they were truly happy; and without strong affection and humanity of heart, and gratitude to that Being whose code is Mercy and whose great attribute is Benevolence to all things that breathe, happiness can never be attained. Within the altar of the old village church there stands a white marble tablet which bears as yet but one word: “Agnes”. . . . I believe that the shade of Agnes sometimes hovers round the solemn nook. I believe it none the less because that nook is in a Church, and she was weak and erring.”

  Charles Dickens

• “At times he <Sikes> turned with desperate determination, resolved to beat this phantom off, though it should look him dead; but the hair rose on his head and his blood stood still, for it had turned with him and was behind him then. He had kept it before him that morning, but it was behind now—always. He leaned his back against a bank, and felt that it stood above him, visibly out against the cold night sky. He threw himself upon the road—on his back upon the road. At his head it stood, silent, erect, and still—a living grave-stone, with its epitaph in blood. Let no man talk of murderers escaping justice, and hint that Providence must sleep. There were twenty score of violent deaths in one long minute of that agony of fear.”

• “Stay another moment,” interposed Rose. . . . “Will you return to this gang of robbers, and to this man, when a word can save you? What fascination is it that can take you back, and make you cling to wickedness and misery?” “When ladies as young, and good, and beautiful as you are,” replied the girl <Nancy> steadily, “give away your hearts, love will carry you all lengths—even such as you, who have home, friends, other admirers, everything, to fill them. When such as I, who have no certain roof but the coffin-lid, and no friend in sickness or death but the hospital nurse, set our rotten hearts on any man, and let him fill the place that has been a blank through all our wretched lives, who can hope to cure us? Pity us, lady—pity us for having only one feeling of the woman left and for having that turned, by a heavy judgment, from a comfort and a pride into a new means of violence and suffering.”

• “Who can describe the pleasure and delight, the peace of mind and soft tranquility, the sickly boy felt in the balmy air and among the green hills and rich woods of an inland village! Who can tell how scenes of peace and quietude sink into the minds of pain-worn dwellers in close and noisy places, and carry their own freshness deep into their jaded hearts! Men who have lived in crowded, pent-up streets, through lives of toil, and who have never wished for change—men to whom custom has indeed been second nature, and who have come almost to love each brick and stone that formed the narrow boundaries of their daily walks—even they, with the hand of death upon them, have been known to yearn at last for one short glimpse of Nature’s face, and, carried far from the scenes of their old pains and pleasures, have seemed to pass at once into a new state of being.”

• “So they established the rule that all poor people should have the alternative (for they would compel nobody, not they) of being starved by a gradual process in the house, or by a quick one out of it. With this view, they contracted with the waterworks to lay on an unlimited supply of water, and with a corn-factor to supply periodically small quantities of oatmeal, and issued three meals of thin gruel a day, with an onion twice a week and half a roll on Sundays. They made a great many other wise and humane regulations . . . kindly undertook to divorce poor married people . . . instead of compelling a man to support his family, as they had theretofore done, took his family away from him, and made him a bachelor! There is no saying how many applicants for relief, under these last two heads, might have started up in all classes of society, if it had not been coupled with the workhouse; but the board were long-headed men, and had provided for this difficulty.”

• “Day was dawning when they again emerged. A great multitude had already assembled; the windows were filled with people, smoking and playing cards to beguile the time; the crowd were pushing, quarreling, joking. Everything told of life and animation but one dark cluster of objects in the centre of all the black stage, the cross-beam, the rope, and all the hideous apparatus of death.”

• “Among other public buildings in a certain town, which for many reasons it will be prudent to refrain from mentioning, and to which I will assign no fictitious name, there is one anciently common to most towns, great or small: to wit, a workhouse; and in this workhouse was born; on a day and date which I need not trouble myself to repeat, inasmuch as it can be of no possible consequence to the reader, in this stage of the business at all events; the item of mortality whose name is prefixed to the head of this chapter.”

• “The shop-boys in the neighbourhood had long been in the habit of branding Noah, in the public streets, with the ignominious epithets of ‘leathers,’ ‘charity,’ and the like; and Noah had borne them without reply. But, now that fortune had cast in his way a nameless orphan, at whom even the meanest could point the finger of scorn, he retorted on him with interest. This affords charming food for contemplation. It shows us what a beautiful thing human nature may be made to be; and how impartially the same amiable qualities are developed in the finest lord and the dirtiest charity-boy.”

• “'Stop thief! Stop thief!' The cry is taken up by a hundred voices, and the crowd accumulate at every turning. Away they fly, splashing through the mud, and rattling along the pavements: up go the windows, out run the people, onward bear the mob, a whole audience desert Punch in the very thickest of the plot, and, joining the rushing throng, swell the shout, and lend fresh vigour to the cry, 'Stop thief! Stop thief!'”

• “The persons on whom I have bestowed my dearest love, lie deep in their graves; but, although the happiness and delight of my life lie buried there too, I have not made a coffin of my heart, and sealed it up, for ever, on my best affections. Deep affliction has but strengthened and refined them.”

  Mr Brownlow

• “The boy was lying, fast asleep, on a rude bed upon the floor; so pale with anxiety, and sadness, and the closeness of his prison, that he looked like death; not death as it shows in shroud and coffin, but in the guise it wears when life has just departed; when a young and gentle spirit has, but an instant, fled to Heaven, and the gross air of the world has not had time to breathe upon the changing dust it hallowed.”

• “Gradually, he fell into that deep tranquil sleep which ease from recent suffering alone imparts; that calm and peaceful rest which it is pain to wake from. Who, if this were death, would be roused again to all the struggles and turmoils of life; to all its cares for the present; its anxieties for the future; more than all, its weary recollections of the past!”

Setting & Locations edit see section history

• London
• Heaven
• Chertsey
• Pentonville
• England

First Sentence edit see section history

Themes & Symbolism edit see section history

• Social Oppression: Describe this theme.
• Power of Dress
• The Loss of Innocence
• Fate vs. Free Will

Series & Lists edit see section history

Authors & Contributors edit see section history

1. Charles Dickens (Author)

Other Contributors:

1. George Cruikshank (Illustrator) - Illustrator of the first edition.
2. G. K. Chesterton (Afterword) - Via the Reader's Digest edition.

First Edition edit see section history

Awards edit see section history

• BBC's Big Read (April 2003, #182)

Classification edit see section history

• Copyright Status: Public Domain
• Library of Congress: PR4567 .A1
• Dewey: 823.8

Notes for Parents edit see section history

Vocabulary is very advanced. The ending is slightly disturbing.

Subjects edit see section history

• Books › Literature & Fiction › World Literature › British
• Books › Literature & Fiction › Classics

Links to Supplemental Material edit see section history

• Project Gutenberg: Free E-book, full text
• Librivox: Free audio book read by Tadhg (Total running time: 15:00:00)
• Librivox: Free audio book read by Arthur Piantadosi and Alisson Veldhuis (Total running time: 17:28:08)

Movie Connections edit see section history

• A Modern Oliver Twist (1906) (IMDb)
• Oliver Twist (1909) (IMDb)
• Oliver Twist (1910) (IMDb): aka "L'enfance d'Oliver Twist" - France (original title)
• Oliver Twist (1911) (IMDb): aka "Storia di un orfano" - Italy (original title)
• Oliver Twist (1912/I) (IMDb): An orphan in early 19th century England escapes the poorhouse only to fall among a gang of pickpockets in London.
• Oliver Twist (1912/II) (IMDb): An orphan in early 19th century England escapes the poorhouse only to fall among a gang of pickpockets in London.
• Oliver Twist (1916) (IMDb): Oliver Twist, a boy born in the poorhouse, lives on the streets. He meets a young thief called the Artful Dodger who introduces him to Fagin - leader and teacher of a gang of youthful pickpockets. Oliver, however grateful for being taken in, is not a thief and cannot live like one.
• Twist Olivér (1919) (IMDb)
• Oliver Twist (1920) (IMDb)
• Oliver Twist (1922) (IMDb): Oliver's mother, a penniless outcast, died giving birth to him. As a young boy Oliver is brought up in a workhouse, later apprenticed to an uncaring undertaker, and eventually is taken in by a gang of thieves who befriend him for their own purposes. All the while, there are secrets from Oliver's family history waiting to come to light.
• Oliver Twist(1933) (IMDb): An orphan boy in 1830's London is abused in a workhouse, then falls into the clutches of a gang of thieves.
• Oliver Twist (1948) (IMDb): Based on the Charles Dickens novel Oliver Twist is about an orphan boy who runs away from a workhouse and meets a pickpocket on the streets of London. Oliver is taken in by the pickpocket and he joins a household of young boys who are trained to steal for their master. This version of Oliver Twist is topped by Alec Guinness's masterly performance of arch-thug Fagin.aka "As Aventuras de Oliver Twist" - Portugal
• Oliver Twist (1955) (TV series) (IMDb)
• Oliver Twist (1960) (TV series) (IMDb)
• Oliver Twist (1962) (TV mini-series) (IMDb)
• Oliver! (1968) (IMDb): Musical adaptation about an orphan who runs away from an orphanage and hooks up with a group of boys trained to be pickpockets by an elderly mentor.
• Oliver Twist (1974) (IMDb)
• Oliver Twist (1982/I) (TV) (IMDb): The classic Dickens tale of an orphan boy who escapes the horrors of the orphanage only to be taken in by a band of thieves and pickpockets.aka "Twist Olivér" - Hungary
• Oliver Twist (1982/II) (TV) (IMDb): The orphan Oliver Twist runs away and joins up with a group of thieves under the supervision of Fagin. Will Oliver be a thief or live an honest life with Mr. Brownlow?
• Oliver Twist (1985) (TV mini-series) (IMDb): In a storm, in a workhouse, to a nameless woman, young Oliver Twist is born into parish care where he's overworked and underfed. As he grows older his adventures take him from the countryside to London, through harsh treatment, kindness, an undertaker, and a thieves' dens, where he makes friends and enemies. But all the time he is pursued by the mysterious Monks, who hires Fagin to turn Oliver into a thief. Oliver is rescued by chance and kind friends. But it's a puzzle of legitimacy, inheritance, and identity that Oliver's friends must attempt to unravel before Monks can destroy Oliver.
• The Adventures of Oliver Twist (1991) (IMDb): aka "Oliver Twist" - Germany
• Les nouvelles aventures d'Oliver Twist (1997-1998) (TV series) (IMDb): aka "Oliver Twist" - USA (promotional title)aka "Saban's Adventures of Oliver Twist" - USA (long title)
• Oliver Twist (1997) (TV) (IMDb): Charles Dickens' classical story about the young orphan boy in 1837 England is again re-filmed in grand fashion. Richard Dreyfuss portrays Fagin, the unscrupulous leader of the young pick-pockets Oliver (Alex Trench) initially falls in with after escaping from a sweat shop and going to London to find his relatives.aka "As Aventuras de Oliver Twist" - Brazil
• Oliver Twist (1999) (TV mini-series) (IMDb): Based on Charles Dickens' novel, this adaptation traces the childhood of an orphan whose mother dies giving birth to him in an English work-house in the 1820s. Little Oliver Twist, already abused, starved and overworked, is apprenticed to an undertaker and runs away to London after being bullied by an older apprentice. There, he is taken in by Fagin, a fence and thief-trainer, and his gang of pickpockets. He is befriended by Nancy, a good-hearted prostitute, and meets her lover, the brutal housebreaker Bill Sikes. But attempts by the gang to discredit him result in his being taken in by Mr. Brownlow, a wealthy and charitable man, who proves the catalyst for Oliver's discovery of his background and identity. Here Alan Bleasdale's dramatisation differs from Dickens' novel, in that Oliver does not fall into Brownlow's hands by coincidence, and we already know his back story: he's the child of a young woman named Agnes Fleming and her married lover, Edwin Leeford, who dies while on a trip to Rome to claim an inheritance he hopes will permit him to settle enough money on his estranged wife and their adolescent son, then retire somewhere with Agnes and her child. Edwin was married as a very young man to an ambitious older woman to suit both their families; they separated acrimoniously and she took their son, Edward, who was seriously injured in an accident as a child and left with several physical and emotional disorders as a result. Mrs. Leeford and Edward despise each other but she bullies him into helping her with her schemes and eventually he takes them up himself when he needs more money than his father's will permits him. Assuming the name Monks and descending into the London underworld, he contracts Fagin to find and educate Oliver, who can only inherit the Leeford fortune if he is of good character and behaviour. As in the novel, Nancy's affection for Oliver is crucial for him, but costly for her.
• Oliver Twist (2005) (IMDb): Oliver Twist is an orphan, who is soon kicked out of the orphanage and thrown into a terrible home. The bad treatment Oliver receives, forces him to run off to London. Here, he is soon picked up by the Artful Dodger and taken to Fagin. Fagin treats Oliver well, but is it the life Oliver really wants? In the Nineteenth Century, the orphan Oliver Twist is sent to a workhouse, where the children are barely fed and mistreated. He moves to the house of an undertaker, but after an unfair severe spank, he starts a seven day runaway to London. He arrives exhausted and starving, and is welcomed by a gang of pickpockets leaded by the old crook Fagin. When he is mistakenly taken as a thief, the wealthy victim Mr. Brownlow brings Oliver to his home and shelters him. But Fagin and the dangerous Bill Sykes decide to kidnap Oliver to burglarize Mr. Brownlow's fancy house. Oliver is wounded, while Mr. Brownlow tries to save Oliver
• Oiver Twist (2007) (TV) (IMDb): The adventures of the orphaned Oliver Twist in Victorian London.

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