Publisher Description
Oliver Twist, subtitled The Parish Boy’s Progress, is the second novel by English author Charles Dickens, published by Richard Bentley in 1838. The story is about an orphan, Oliver Twist, who endures a miserable existence in a workhouse and then is placed with an undertaker. He escapes and travels to London where he meets the Artful Dodger, leader of a gang of juvenile pickpockets. Naïvely unaware of their unlawful activities, Oliver is led to the lair of their elderly criminal trainer Fagin. Oliver Twist is notable for Dickens’ unromantic portrayal of criminals and their sordid lives. The book exposed the cruel treatment of the many orphans in London during the Dickensian era. The book’s subtitle, The Parish Boy’s Progress, alludes to Bunyan’s The Pilgrim’s Progress and also to a pair of popular 18th-century caricature series by William Hogarth, A Rake’s Progress and A Harlot’s Progress. An early example of the social novel, the book calls the public’s attention to various contemporary evils, including child labor, the recruitment of children as criminals, and the presence of street children. Dickens mocks the hypocrisies of his time by surrounding the novel’s serious themes with sarcasm and dark humor. The novel may have been inspired by the story of Robert Blincoe, an orphan whose account of hardships as a child laborer in a cotton mill was widely read in the 1830s. It is likely that Dickens’s own early youth as a child laborer contributed to the story’s development.
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About Charles Dickens
Patrick
Tull (1941–2006), born in the United Kingdom, was a multitalented actor of the stage, screen, and
television, as well as an award-winning audiobook narrator. He acted in
numerous American television shows from 1962 to 1996, including Crossroads, and he had roles in six Broadway plays between 1967 and
1992, including Amadeus. His film credits
from 1969 to 1996 included roles as Cecil in Parting Glances and Jerry the bartender in Sleepers. He served as narrator for the television series Sea Tales. He narrated nearly forty audiobooks,
and his readings of The Canterbury Tales,
The Letter of Marque, Monk’s Hood, The Vicar of Wakefield, and
How Green Was My Valley each earned
him an AudioFile Earphones Award. His narration of Patrick O’Brian’s
Aubrey/Maturin novels was praised by novelist Stephen King as among his ten favorite
audiobooks of 2006.