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Oliver Twist (Tor Classic)
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Oliver Twist (Tor Classic) Hardcover - 1998

by Dickens, Charles


About this book

Oliver Twist, published in 1838, became one of English writer Charles Dickens's better-known stories and was the first Victorian novel with a child protagonist. 

Oliver Twist
(Parish Boy's Progress) focuses on orphan Oliver Twist, born in a workhouse and sold into an apprenticeship with an undertaker. After escaping, Oliver travels to London, where he meets the "Artful Dodger", a member of a gang of juvenile pickpockets led by an elderly criminal Fagin. The book shows an unromantic portrayal of criminals and the treatment of the many orphans in London in the mid-19th century.

From the publisher

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.

First Edition Identification

Oliver Twist was first published as a serial from 1837 to 1839 and released as a three-volume book in 1838 before the serialization ended.

The first edition was published by Richard Bentley in London, 1838. Octavo, three volumes, original reddish-brown cloth, gilt titles to the spine, front and rear panels marked with a stamp. Features 24 illustrated plates by George Cruikshank. 

The first issue has the "Fireside" plate in volume 3 and "Boz" listed as the author on all title pages. It was issued on November 9, 1838. At Dicken's insistence, the Fireside plate was replaced with the "Church" plate, and Dickens's name replaced "Boz". The book was then reissued in three volumes 7 days after the first issue, on November 16.

The First US Edition of Oliver Twist was published in New York by Jemima M. Lewer in 1838, as two volumes, bound in modern brown quarter-leather bindings, with marbled paper boards.

Details

  • Title Oliver Twist (Tor Classic)
  • Author Dickens, Charles
  • Binding Hardcover
  • Publisher Perfection Learning
  • Date 1998-08
  • ISBN 9780780796270
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Oliver Twist (Tor Classic)

Oliver Twist (Tor Classic)

by Charles Dickens

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Oliver Twist (Tor Classic)
Stock Photo: Cover May Be Different

Oliver Twist (Tor Classic)

by Charles Dickens

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  • Hardcover
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Binding
Hardcover
ISBN 13
9780780796270
ISBN 10
0780796276
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Description:
Perfection Learning, 1998-08. Hardcover. Good.
Item Price
NZ$15.32
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