The Originals: Oliver Twist

Book excerpt: Charles Dickens’ second novel, Oliver Twist, or The Parish Boy’s Progress, was first published as a serial (in monthly instalments) in the magazine Bentley’s Miscellany from February 1837 to April 1839. The novel was inspired by Robert Blincoe’s account of his childhood spent in a cotton mill. Oliver Twist, an orphan, is born in a workhouse and later sold off into an apprenticeship. Dickens situates his protagonist amid the squalid lives of beggars, criminals and petty thieves. Trapped in a world of corruption and poverty, Oliver with his pure heart is rewarded with a fairytale ending. The dark reality of child labour, the effects of industrialisation and the condition of orphans in London in the mid-19th century form the crux of Dickens’ heart-rending novel. Great Expectations revolves around the life of an orphan nicknamed Pip. The novel, set in the 19th century, traces the psychological growth of Pip in three stages: his childhood in the marshes of Kent, his journey from the rural environs to the London metropolis, and finally his reluctant reconciliation with the vanity of false promises and values. The cast includes the cold yet ethereal Estella, the kind-hearted blacksmith Joe, the ‘pale young gentleman’ Herbert Pocket and the affluent, eccentric spinster Miss Havisham, among others. George Bernard Shaw said of the novel, ‘All of one piece and consistently truthful.’