Oliver Twist (Signet Classics) - Softcover

Dickens, Charles

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0451529715 ISBN 13: 9780451529718

Publisher: Signet, 2005

Synopsis

One of the great novelist’s most popular works, Oliver Twist is also the purest distillation of Dickens’s genius.

This tale of the orphan who is reared in a workhouse and runs away to London is a novel of social protest, a morality tale, and a detective story. Oliver Twist presents some of the most sinister characters in Dickens: the master thief, Fagin; the leering Artful Dodger; the murderer, Bill Sikes...along with some of his most sentimental and comical characters. Only Dickens can give us nightmare and daydream together.

According to George Orwell, “in Oliver Twist...Dickens attacked English institutions with a ferocity that has never since been approached. Yet he managed to do it without making himself hated, and, more than this, the very people he attacked have welcomed him so completely that he has become a national institution himself.”

With an Introduction by Frederick Busch
and an Afterword by Edward Le Comte

About this title

From the Publisher

10 1.5-hour cassettes

From the Back Cover

Starved and mistreated, empty bowl in hand, the young hero musters the courage to approach his master, saying, "Please, sir, I want some more." Oliver Twist's famous cry of the heart has resounded with readers since the novel's initial appearance in 1837, and the book remains a popular favorite with fans of all ages.
Dickens was no stranger to the pain of hunger and the degradation of poverty. He poured his own youthful experience of Victorian London's unspeakable squalor into this realistic depiction of the link between destitution and crime. Oliver escapes his miserable servitude by running away to London, where he unwillingly but inevitably joins a scabrous gang of thieves. Masterminded by the loathsome Fagin, the underworld crew features some of Dickens' most memorable characters, including the juvenile pickpocket known as the Artful Dodger, the vicious Bill Sikes, and gentle Nancy, an angel of self-sacrifice.
A profound social critic, Dickens introduced genteel readers to the problems of the poor in a way that had rarely been attempted before. This tale of the struggle between hope and cruelty continues to speak to modern audiences.

Edition details

• Publisher: Signet
• Publication date: 2005
• ISBN 10: 0451529715
• ISBN 13: 9780451529718
• Binding: Mass Market Paperback
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 512