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  • Published: 1 August 2013
  • ISBN: 9780099582632
  • Imprint: Vintage Children's Classics
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 736
  • RRP: $21.00

Oliver Twist




Oliver Twist: orphan, trainee pickpocket, good boy. Elbow your way through the streets of Victorian London with Dicken's most enduring child character

‘Look here! Here’s a jolly life! What’s the odds where it comes from?’

Meet the Artful Dodger, as roistering and swaggering a young gentleman as ever stood four foot six. With him, you’ll run down the dirty backstreets of London to be entertained by the Respectable Old Gentleman and his brood of thieves and pickpockets. Fagin will bring you to ‘the trade’, and make something of you, something profitable.But there’s something about the young orphan Oliver that’s too good for this dark and dangerous world – can he ever escape its clutches?

Includes exclusive material: In ‘The Backstory’ you can learn more about Oliver Twist’s London!

Vintage Children’s Classics is a twenty-first century classics list aimed at 8-12 year olds and the adults in their lives. Discover timeless favourites from The Jungle Book and Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland to modern classics such as The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas and The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time.

  • Published: 1 August 2013
  • ISBN: 9780099582632
  • Imprint: Vintage Children's Classics
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 736
  • RRP: $21.00

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About the author

Charles Dickens

Charles Dickens was born in Hampshire on February 7, 1812. His father was a clerk in the navy pay office, who was well paid but often ended up in financial troubles. When Dickens was twelve years old he was send to work in a shoe polish factory because his family had been taken to the debtors' prison. Fagin is named after a boy Dickens disliked at the factory. His career as a writer of fiction started in 1833 when his short stories and essays began to appear in periodicals. The Pickwick Papers, his first commercial success, was published in 1836. In the same year he married the daughter of his friend George Hogarth, Catherine Hogarth. The serialisation of Oliver Twist began in 1837 while The Pickwick Papers was still running. Many other novels followed and The Old Curiosity Shop brought Dickens international fame and he became a celebrity in America as well as Britain. He separated from his wife in 1858. Charles Dickens died on 9 June 1870, leaving his last novel, The Mystery of Edwin Drood, unfinished. He is buried in Westminster Abbey.

Charles Dickens was born in Hampshire on February 7, 1812. His father was a clerk in the navy pay office, who was well paid but often ended up in financial troubles. When Dickens was twelve years old he was send to work in a shoe polish factory because his family had be taken to the debtors' prison.Fagin is named after a boy Dickens disliked at the factory. His career as a writer of fiction started in 1833 when his short stories and essays began to appear in periodicals. The Pickwick Papers, his first commercial success, was published in 1836. In the same year he married the daughter of his friend George Hogarth, Catherine Hogarth. The serialisation of Oliver Twist began in 1837 while The Pickwick Papers was still running. Many other novels followed and The Old Curiosity Shop brought Dickens international fame and he became a celebrity America as well as Britain. He separated from his wife in 1858. Charles Dickens died on 9 June 1870, leaving his last novel, The Mystery of Edwin Drood, unfinished. He is buried in Westminster Abbey.

Charles Dickens (1812 – 1870) was an English writer and social critic. He created some of the world's most well-known fictional characters and is generally regarded as the greatest novelist of the Victorian period. During his life, his works enjoyed unprecedented popularity, and by the twentieth century he was widely seen as a literary genius by critics and scholars. His novels and short stories continue to be widely popular.

Charles Dickens was born in Portsmouth on 7 February 1812, the second of eight children. Dickens's childhood experiences were similar to those depicted in David Copperfield. His father, who was a government clerk, was imprisoned for debt and Dickens was briefly sent to work in a blacking warehouse at the age of twelve. He received little formal education, but taught himself shorthand and became a reporter of parliamentary debates for the Morning Chronicle. He began to publish sketches in various periodicals, which were subsequently republished as Sketches by Boz. The Pickwick Papers was published in 1836-7, after a slow start it became a publishing phenomenon and Dickens's characters the centre of a popular cult. Part of the secret of his success was the method of cheap serial publication he adopted; thereafter, all Dickens's novels were first published in serial form. He began Oliver Twist in 1837, followed by Nicholas Nickleby (1838) and The Old Curiosity Shop (1840-41). After finishing Barnaby Rudge (1841) Dickens set off for America; he went full of enthusiasm for the young republic but, in spite of a triumphant reception, he returned disillusioned. His experiences are recorded in American Notes (1842). A Christmas Carol, the first of the hugely popular Christmas Books, appeared in 1843, while Martin Chuzzlewit, which included a fictionalized account of his American travels, was first published over the period 1843-4. During 1844-6 Dickens travelled abroad and he began Dombey and Son while in Switzerland. This and David Copperfield (1849-50) were more serious in theme and more carefully planned than his early novels. In later works, such as Bleak House (1853) and Little Dorrit (1857), Dickens's social criticism became more radical and his comedy more savage. In 1850 Dickens started the weekly periodical Household Words, succeeded in 1859 by All the Year Round. Dickens's health was failing during the 1860s and the physical strain of the public readings which he began in 1858 hastened his decline, although Our Mutual Friend (1865) retained some of his best comedy. His last novel, The Mystery of Edwin Drood, was never completed and he died on 9 June 1870. Public grief at his death was considerable and he was buried in the Poets' Corner of Westminster Abbey.

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Praise for Oliver Twist

He flings together characters from every walk of life into dazzling, swarming, state-of-the city narratives. In his London the rich cannot escape the poor, and the do-gooders and swindlers quaff ale elbow-to-elbow. The inanimate actors are as vivid as the living: the miserable workhouse that harboured Oliver Twist is no less legendary than the poor, begging boy himself or his criminal chum, the Artful Dodger

Economist

It was first ingrained into my mind thanks to a starring role in the school musical. Appetite whetted, I explored the source material and found beyond the ditties I knew were words full of power and illustration, as Dickens intended

Dillon Khan, YA author

The poor boy's life had the author's desired impact on me. Was life really that bad for children in the past? But in true Dickens style, the happy ending came, and I returned it to the library content.

Sufiya Ahmed, YA author

We sit entranced at Dickens' feet, safe in his stories; and when we come out, we have tools to help us guard against the dark

Daily Telegraph