Oliver Twist (A Stepping Stone Book) - Softcover

Dickens, Charles

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0679803912 ISBN 13: 9780679803911

Publisher: Random House Children's Books, 1990

Synopsis

This fiercely comic tale stands in marked contrast to its genial predecessor, "The Pickwick Papers." Set against London's seedy back street slums, "Oliver Twist" is the saga of a workhouse orphan captured and thrust into a thieves' den, where some of Dickens's most depraved villains preside: the incorrigible Artful Dodger, the murderous bully Sikes, and the terrible Fagin, that treacherous ringleader whose grinning knavery threatens to send them all to the "ghostly gallows." Yet at the heart of this drama is the orphan Oliver, whose unsullied goodness leads him at last to salvation. In 1838 the publication of "Oliver Twist" firmly established the literary eminence of young Dickens. It was, according to Edgar Johnson, "a clarion peal announcing to the world that in Charles Dickens the rejected and forgotten and misused of the world had a champion."

About this title

Review

"The power of [Dickens] is so amazing, that the reader at once becomes his captive, and must follow him whithersoever he leads." --William Makepeace Thackeray

About the Author

Charles Dickens (1812-1870) was born in Portsmouth, England, and spent most of his life in London. When he was twelve, his father was sent to debtor's prison and he was forced to work in a boot polish factory, an experience that marked him for life. He became a passionate advocate of social reform and the most popular writer of the Victorian era.

About this edition

• Publisher: Random House Children's Books
• Publication date: 1990
• ISBN 10: 0679803912
• ISBN 13: 9780679803911
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 96
• Illustrator: Zallinger Jean