Oliver Twist, Vol. 1 (of 3)
1838
The novel that made England uncomfortable with itself. When young Oliver Twist asks for "more" gruel in the workhouse, it's not just a hungry boy begging for food, it is a child demanding to be seen as human in a system designed to erase him. Dickens transforms this simple act of defiance into a damning portrait of a society that warehouses its most vulnerable and then punishes them for existing. Orphaned at birth and raised in squalor, Oliver escapes the workhouse only to fall into London's criminal underworld, where the sinister Fagin takes him in and trains him to pick pockets. He encounters the charming Artful Dodger, the brutish Bill Sikes, and the tragic Nancy, characters so vivid they have long outgrown the pages that birthed them. Yet through every trial, Oliver remains stubbornly, almost impossibly good, a pinpoint of light in a city that profits from darkness. Oliver Twist is both a propulsive melodrama and a searing attack on the hypocrisy of Victorian society. It reads like a thriller while quietly changing how a civilization sees its children.
Editions
X-Ray
“There are books of which the backs and covers are by far the best parts.””
— Charles Dickens
“It is because I think so much of warm and sensitive hearts, that I would spare them from being wounded.””
— Charles Dickens
“My heart is set, as firmly as ever heart of man was set on woman. I have no thought, no view, no hope, in life beyond her; and if you oppose me in this great stake, you take my peace and happiness in your hands, and cast them to the wind.””
— Charles Dickens
“The sun,--the bright sun, that brings back, not light alone, but new life, and hope, and freshness to man--burst upon the crowded city in clear and radiant glory. Through costly-coloured glass and paper-mended window, through cathedral dome and rotten crevice, it shed its equal ray.””
— Charles Dickens
“Please, sir, I want some more.””
— Charles Dickens
“Some people are nobody's enemies but their own, yer know.””
— Charles Dickens
“The suspense: the fearful, acute suspense: of standing idly by while the life of one we dearly love, is trembling in the balance; the racking thoughts that crowd upon the mind, and make the heart beat violently, and the breath come thick, by the force of the images they conjure up before it; the desperate anxiety to relieve the pain, or lessen the danger, which we have no power to alleviate; the sinking of soul and spirit, which the sad remembrance of our helplessness produces; what tortures can equal these; what reflections of endeavours can, in the full tide and fever of the time, allay them!””
— Charles Dickens
“Such is the influence which the condition of our own thoughts, exercises, even over the appearance of external objects. Men who look on nature, and their fellow-men, and cry that all is dark and gloomy, are in the right; but the sombre colours are reflections from their own jaundiced eyes and hearts. The real hues are delicate, and need a clearer vision.””
— Charles Dickens
“I know that she deserves the best and purest love the heart of man can offer," said Mrs. Maylie; "I know that the devotion and affection of her nature require no ordinary return, but one that shall be deep and lasting.””
— Charles Dickens
Link to this book
Add a free, dofollow link to Lex on your blog, forum, syllabus, or reading list.
<a href="https://lex-books.com/book/oliver-twist-vol-1-of-3-de67a2a9-e7a6-4a28-a51d-a06bc7f99fb2"><img src="https://lex-books.com/badges/read-on-lex.svg" alt="Read Oliver Twist, Vol. 1 (of 3) by Charles Dickens free on Lex" width="160" height="40"></a>[](https://lex-books.com/book/oliver-twist-vol-1-of-3-de67a2a9-e7a6-4a28-a51d-a06bc7f99fb2)[url=https://lex-books.com/book/oliver-twist-vol-1-of-3-de67a2a9-e7a6-4a28-a51d-a06bc7f99fb2][img]https://lex-books.com/badges/read-on-lex.svg[/img][/url]Read Oliver Twist, Vol. 1 (of 3) by Charles Dickens free on Lex: https://lex-books.com/book/oliver-twist-vol-1-of-3-de67a2a9-e7a6-4a28-a51d-a06bc7f99fb2Cite this book
Reading this edition for a paper or guide? Copy a citation.
Dickens, Charles. Oliver Twist, Vol. 1 (of 3). Lex, lex-books.com/book/oliver-twist-vol-1-of-3-de67a2a9-e7a6-4a28-a51d-a06bc7f99fb2.Dickens, C. (1838). Oliver Twist, Vol. 1 (of 3). Lex. https://lex-books.com/book/oliver-twist-vol-1-of-3-de67a2a9-e7a6-4a28-a51d-a06bc7f99fb2Dickens, Charles. Oliver Twist, Vol. 1 (of 3). Lex. https://lex-books.com/book/oliver-twist-vol-1-of-3-de67a2a9-e7a6-4a28-a51d-a06bc7f99fb2.
