Week #30 – Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens

Welcome to 2023!  On Mondays this year, let’s discuss and have fun with books. No I’m not writing book reviews. But this website is for writers, and writers like books right? So let’s have FUN with books!

Week #30 – Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens, 1838

Oliver Twist, also called The Parish Boy's Progress, is the second novel by Charles Dickens. It was originally published as a serial beginning in 1837, then as a three-volume book in 1838. Oliver was raised in a workhouse and escapes to London, where he meets a gang of juvenile pickpockets led by the elderly Fagin.

The story is a social commentary on child labor, domestic violence, the recruitment of children as criminals, and street children.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oliver_Twist

It was made into a movie in 1948 starring Alec Guinness as Fagin, and in 2005 directed by Roman Polanski and starring Ben Kingsley as Fagin.

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0040662/

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0380599/

Disney produced the animated Oliver & Company in 1988

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0095776/

You can read the entire book here on Project Gutenberg

https://www.gutenberg.org/files/730/730-h/730-h.htm

“Sanitation”, such as it was, in Victorian London

https://www.npr.org/2015/03/12/392332431/dirty-old-london-a-history-of-the-victorians-infamous-filth

https://www.britainexpress.com/London/victorian-london.htm

Facts you didn’t know about Victorian London

https://dickensmuseum.com/blogs/charles-dickens-museum/10-surprising-facts-about-victorian-london

Tips for avoiding pickpockets in London [includes ideas like “don’t look like a tourist” and “don’t wear expensive jewelry or use your phone in public”]

https://www.met.police.uk/cp/crime-prevention/personal-safety-how-to-stay-safe/pickpocketing/

https://strawberrytours.com/tips-avoiding-pickpockets-london

https://thesavvybackpacker.com/pickpockets-europe/

Have you lived in or traveled to London? Tell us about it in the comments!