Book description
With an essay by Graham Greene.
'A parish child - the orphan of a workhouse - the humble,
half-starved drudge - to be cuffed and buffeted through the world,
despised by all, and pitied by none'
Dark, mysterious and mordantly funny, Oliver Twist features
some of the most memorably drawn villains in all of fiction - the
treacherous gangmaster Fagin, the menacing thug Bill Sikes, the Artful
Dodger and their den of thieves in the grimy London backstreets.
Dicken's novel is both an angry indictment of poverty, and an
adventure filled with an air of threat and pervasive evil.
The Penguin English Library - 100 editions of the best fiction in
English, from the eighteenth century and the very first novels to the
beginning of the First World War.
Charles Dickens (1812-70) had his first, astounding success with
his first novel The Pickwick Papers and never looked back. In
an extraordinarily full life he wrote, campaigned and spoke on a huge
range of issues, and was involved in many of the key aspects of
Victorian life, by turns cajoling, moving and irritating. He completed
fourteen full-length novels and volume after volume of journalism.
Oliver Twist was his second novel and champions the cause of
London's orphans within a narrative both irresistibly sinister and
often deeply ironic.
The Pickwick Papers, Nicholas Nickleby, The Old
Curiosity Shop, Barnaby Rudge, A Christmas Carol,
Martin Chuzzlewit, Dombey and Son, David
Copperfield, Bleak House, Hard Times, Litte
Dorrit, A Tale of Two Cities, Great Expectations,
Our Mutual Friend and The Mystery of Edwin Drood are
also published in the Penguin English Library.
