The document provides biographical information on Charles Dickens and summaries of some of his major novels and short stories. It notes that Dickens wrote many famous novels including Oliver Twist, A Christmas Carol, and Great Expectations. Oliver Twist tells the story of the orphan Oliver and his experience in London among Fagin's criminal gang before being rescued by the benefactor Mr. Brownlow. The document also lists Dickens' other works such as A Tale of Two Cities, Bleak House, and David Copperfield, as well as some of his short stories.
The document provides biographical information on Charles Dickens and summaries of some of his major novels and short stories. It notes that Dickens wrote many famous novels including Oliver Twist, A Christmas Carol, and Great Expectations. Oliver Twist tells the story of the orphan Oliver and his experience in London among Fagin's criminal gang before being rescued by the benefactor Mr. Brownlow. The document also lists Dickens' other works such as A Tale of Two Cities, Bleak House, and David Copperfield, as well as some of his short stories.
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The document provides biographical information on Charles Dickens and summaries of some of his major novels and short stories. It notes that Dickens wrote many famous novels including Oliver Twist, A Christmas Carol, and Great Expectations. Oliver Twist tells the story of the orphan Oliver and his experience in London among Fagin's criminal gang before being rescued by the benefactor Mr. Brownlow. The document also lists Dickens' other works such as A Tale of Two Cities, Bleak House, and David Copperfield, as well as some of his short stories.
Copyright:
Attribution Non-Commercial (BY-NC)
Available Formats
Download as PPT, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
Major Novels: The Pickwick Papers (1836–1837) Oliver Twist (1837–1839) Nicholas Nickleby (1838–1839) The Old Curiosity Shop (1840–1841) Barnaby Rudge (1841) The Christmas books: A Christmas Carol (1843) The Chimes (1844) The Cricket on the Hearth (1845) The Battle of Life (1846) The Haunted Man (1848) Martin Chuzzlewit (1843–1844) Dombey and Son (1846–1848) David Copperfield (1849–1850) Bleak House (1852–1853) Hard Times (1854) Little Dorrit (1855–1857) A Tale of Two Cities (1859) Great Expectations (1860–1861) Our Mutual Friend (1864–1865) The Mystery of Edwin Drood (unfinished) (1870) A scene from Oliver Twist, from an early 20th Century edition Selected other books: Sketches by Boz (1836) Master Humphrey's Clock (1840–1841) American Notes (1842) Pictures from Italy (1844–1845) The Life of Our Lord (1846, published in 1934) A Child's History of England (1851–1853) The Uncommercial Traveller (1860–1869) Short stories: A Child's Dream of a Star (1850) Captain Murderer The Christmas stories: A Christmas Tree (1850) What Christmas is, as We Grow Older (1851) The Poor Relation's Story (1852) The Child's Story (1852) The Schoolboy's Story (1853) Nobody's Story (1853) The Seven Poor Travellers (1854) Short stories: The Holly-tree Inn (1855) The Wreck of the Golden Mary (1856) The Perils of Certain English Prisoners (1857) Going into Society (1858) The Haunted House (1859) A Message from the Sea (1860) Tom Tiddler's Ground (1861) Somebody's Luggage (1862) Mrs Lirriper's Lodgings (1863) Mrs Lirriper's Legacy (1864) Short stories: Doctor Marigold's Prescriptions (1865) Mugby Junction (1866) No Thoroughfare (1867) George Silverman's Explanation Holiday Romance Hunted Down The Lamplighter The Signal-Man (1866) Sunday Under Three Heads The Trial for Murder Dickens Statue in Philadelphia “Oliver Twist” Main Characters
Oliver: the main protagonist, a boy born in a
workhouse. Fagin: a Jew who recruits and trains boys for thievery Bill Sikes: a violent thief The Artful Dodger aka Jack Dawkins: one of Fagin's boy pickpockets Charley Bates: another of Fagin's boy pickpockets Nancy: barmaid and Bill's girl Betsy: a thief of Fagin's and friend of Nancy Noah Claypole: apprentice to Mr Sowerberry Mr. Brownlow Monks, aka Edward Leeford: Oliver's half-brother Rose Maylie Mr. Bumble: the parish Beadle Mr. Sowerberry: an Undertaker who takes Oliver into his service Mrs. Sowerberry Charlotte: servant to Mrs Sowerberry Gamfield: vicious chimney-sweep Mrs Bedwin: usekeeper to Mr Brownlow Mr Grimwig: n old friend of Mr Brownlow's Recount One of Dickens’ most enduringly popular stories is Oliver Twist, an early work published 1837-8. Like many of his later novels, its central theme is the hardship faced by the dispossessed and those of the outside of ‘polite’ society. Oliver himself is born in a workhouse and treated cruelly there as was the norm at the time for pauper children, in particular by Bumble, a parish council official or ‘beadle’. The story follows Oliver as he escapes the workhouse and runs away to London. Here he receives an education in villainy from the criminal gang of Fagin that includes the brutal thief Bill Sikes, the famous ‘Artful Dodger’ and Nancy, Bill’s whore. Oliver is rescued by the intervention of a benefactor - Mr Brownlow - but the mysterious Monks gets the gang to kidnap the boy again. Recount Nancy intervenes but is murdered viciously by Sikes after she has showed some redeeming qualities and has discovered Monk’s sinister intention. The story closes happily and with justice for Bumble and the cruel Monks who has hidden the truth of Oliver’s parentage out of malice. Accusations were made that the book glamorised crime (like the ‘Newgate Group’ of the period) but Dickens wisely disassociated himself from criminal romances. His achievement was in fact in presenting the underworld and problems of poverty to the well-off in a way rarely attempted previously. Charles Dickens