Oliver Twist

After running away from the workhouse and pompous beadle Mr Bumble Oliver Twist finds himself lured into a den of thieves peopled by vivid and memorable characters - the Artful Dodger vicious burglar Bill Sikes his dog Bull's Eye and prostitute Nancy all watched over by cunning master-thief Fagin.|Charles Dickens (1812-70) was a political reporter and journalist whose popularity was established by the phenomenally successful Pickwick Papers (1836-7). His novels captured and held the public imagination over a period of more than thirty years. Philip Horne is a Reader in English at UCL. He is author of the acclaimed 'Henry James: A Life in Letters' and editor of James' The Tragic Muse for Penguin.|'The power of Dickens is so amazing that the reader at once becomes his captive' WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAYThe story of the orphan Oliver who runs away from the workhouse to be taken in by a den of thieves shocked readers with its depiction of a dark criminal underworld peopled by vivid and memorable characters - the arch-villain Fagin the artful Dodger the menacing Bill Sikes and the prostitute Nancy. Combining elements of Gothic romance the Newgate novel and popular melodrama Oliver Twist created an entirely new kind of fiction scathing in its indictment of a cruel society and pervaded by an unforgettable sense of threat and mystery.Edited with an Introduction and notes by PHILIP HORNE