How Do Other Characters View Oliver Twist Has Changed

Oliver Twist Introduction

"Please sir, I desire some more."

These are words etched in our imagination. If we want just a little teensy bit more of something—coffee, chicken tenders, cash—nosotros tend to remember the super-pathetic plea of a lilliputian orphan in England.

Expect. Why are we, as sophisticated 21st Century citizens, still using a line penned in the 1830's when we desire a second helping? The brusk respond: Charles Dickens is awesome.

Oliver Twist is one of the most famous novels Charles Dickens e'er wrote (which is impressive, given that he wrote fifteen super-popular novels during his life). It's a classic rags-to-riches story near an orphan who has to discover his way through a metropolis full of criminals, and avoid beingness corrupted. People read Oliver Twist in Dickens'southward 24-hour interval—and are even so reading it now—for the gritty realism with which Dickens portrays working class people and the horrible living atmospheric condition of the London slums.

Oliver Twist is likewise the second novel Dickens ever wrote, and it was published in installments between 1837 and 1839. Many novels at the time were published serially, meaning that each affiliate was issued separately, in one case a month, over the space of a year or two. And this just upped the hype of his novels.

The publishing of novels in magazines is similar to TV today: each magazine was like a different aqueduct. The Victorians had magazines with different specialties. Bentley'southward Miscellany was like an early Victorian HBO—it pushed the envelope in terms of the blazon of content that could be published, and a lot of prominent novelists and essayists started out writing for Bentley's, including our man Charles Dickens—he started writing the monthly installments of Oliver Twist earlier he'd even finished writing his start novel, The Pickwick Papers.

But while The Pickwick Papers was all fun and games, Twist was nighttime and gritty. Oliver Twist is an example of a style of novel that was incredibly pop (only widely criticized) from the 1820's to the 1840'due south: the "Newgate novel." The Newgate novel takes its proper noun from the Newgate prison, the main prison for felons (pickpockets, thieves, prostitutes, murderers) in London.

Those Newgate novels sold like hotcakes. It seemed like folks couldn't get enough of them. Simply the critics of the Newgate novels thought they were damaging English language morals. Because the Newgate novels didn't shy away from depicting criminal stuff—prostitution, stealing, and even murder—critics said that reading those novels would desensitize people to violence.

(Hmm, sounds an awful lot similar the arguments you hear today against starting time-person shooter video games, or games like M Theft Car, doesn't it? The next time someone criticizes your gustation in videogames, y'all can endeavour suggesting that, if Dickens were alive today, he might have tried his hand at writing a shooter.)

Oliver Twist is Dickens's only novel that qualifies equally a "Newgate novel," though, so it seems like he only wanted to try his hand at the popular mode of writing earlier turning to other, loftier pursuits. We're certainly happy that he experimented with the Newgate genre, considering nosotros're left with the totally entertaining fruits of that experiment.

... as well equally the catchphrase "Please sir, I want some more."

What is Oliver Twist About and Why Should I Care?

Psst. Hey. Hey, Shmooper. Over here.

You look similar the kind of person who enjoys literary journeys into the underbelly of society. You look like kind of person who gets a thrill from texts about the mob. Or from nefarious deeds committed in night alleys by men with ominous mustaches.

We're betting you like the really good stuff. The premium stuff. And by "stuff" nosotros mean "TV," obviously. Yes. We bet you similar AMC and HBO: meth cooks in New Mexico. Haunted detectives. Grade-A antiheroes.

Well, how would you like to become your kicks with one of the texts that started this whole seedy tendency?

People tend to recall of Oliver Twist every bit an former volume about a cherubic orphan, but in reality it's manner more creeptastic and peripheral than that. It's nearly a cherubic orphan, sure. Simply information technology's really about the worst possible environment for our sweet lil' Oliver: the original mean streets of London-town and the people that populated them.

Murderers. Pickpockets. Prostitutes. Pimps. Beggars. Drunks. Schemers. Loners. Dreamers. Criminals.

These are the characters at the heart of Oliver Twist—the aforementioned cast that shows up every Sunday dark on Television receiver. We love them now, and we loved them back in the 1830's. In fact, Oliver Twist'due south original serialized grade made reading the book mode back when a lot like tuning in for your favorite cable mayhem today.

And you know what? Information technology holds upwards. Even for audiences jaded by too much True Detective, Oliver Twist hits the sweetness spot that we know and honey: the union of sleazy abjection and great art.

Oliver Twist Resources

Movie or TV Productions

Roman Polanski'southward Oliver Twist
This production came out in 2005.

1999 mini-series Oliver Twist
This ane has a great cast, including Keira Knightley as Rose, and Andy Serkis equally Bill Sikes.

The musical: Oliver!
Oliver Twist was adapted as a musical in 1968. This is the most famous film version of the musical – it won v Oscars.

Videos

Adapting Oliver Twist for the stage
Here's a word of how Neil Bartlett adapted Oliver Twist for the stage.

Audio

Oliver Twist Audiobook
Purchase and download the Audiobook from Random House Audio

Documents

Henry Mayhew – London Labour, and the London Poor
Mayhew was a buddy of Dickens. He was also a announcer and kind of an amateur sociologist – he visited all the dodgy parts of London and interviewed real criminals, prostitutes, and various other seedy characters from the London underworld. This volume is a collection of a lot of his articles from simply around the period of Oliver Twist.

D.A. Miller – The Novel and the Police
This book shows how the novel itself can be seen as a mechanism for a kind of social control. Miller talks a lot near Oliver Twist and some of the issues of solitude and power that are discussed elsewhere in this module.

Keith Hollingsworth – The Newgate Novel
This is a good and readable history of the Newgate novel, and should provide some useful context if yous're interested in criminal offense fiction.

Lucy Moore – Con Men and Cutpurses
This is a history book that focuses more on the eighteenth century than the nineteenth, but information technology's easy to read and gives some not bad groundwork info on criminal offence and punishment during the period.

Other

Newgate Novels-- Britannica
Britannica online has a good entry on Newgate novels, also, but y'all'll demand to log in from your school or library in guild to access information technology.