Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens (smart books to read .TXT) 📕
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Oliver Twist, or The Parish Boy’s Progress was Charles Dickens’ second novel, following The Pickwick Papers, and was published as a serial in the magazine Bentley’s Miscellany between 1837 and 1839. It details the misadventures of its eponymous character, Oliver Twist, born in a Victorian-era workhouse, his mother dying within minutes of his birth. He is raised in miserable conditions, half-starved, and then sent out as an apprentice to an undertaker. Running away from this situation, he walks to London and falls under the influence of a criminal gang run by an old man called Fagin, who wants to employ the child as a pickpocket.
The novel graphically depicts the wretched living conditions of much of the poor people of Victorian times and the disgusting slums in which they were forced to live. It has been accused of perpetrating anti-Semitic stereotypes in the character of Fagin, almost always referred to as “the Jew” in the book’s early chapters. Interestingly, while the serial was still running in the magazine, Dickens was eventually persuaded that he was wrong in this and removed many such usages in later episodes. He also introduced more kindly Jewish characters in such later novels as Our Mutual Friend.
Oliver Twist was immediately popular in serial form, with its often gripping story and lurid details. It has remained one of Dicken’s best-loved novels, and the story has often been made into films and television series, as well as into a very popular musical, Oliver!.
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- Author: Charles Dickens
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“A porochial life, ma’am,” continued Mr. Bumble, striking the table with his cane, “is a life of worrit, and vexation, and hardihood; but all public characters, as I may say, must suffer prosecution.”
Mrs. Mann, not very well knowing what the beadle meant, raised her hands with a look of sympathy, and sighed.
“Ah! You may well sigh, Mrs. Mann!” said the beadle.
Finding she had done right, Mrs. Mann sighed again: evidently to the satisfaction of the public character: who, repressing a complacent smile by looking sternly at his cocked hat, said,
“Mrs. Mann, I am going to London.”
“Lauk, Mr. Bumble!” cried Mrs. Mann, starting back.
“To London, ma’am,” resumed the inflexible beadle, “by coach. I and two paupers, Mrs. Mann! A legal action is a coming on, about a settlement; and the board has appointed me—me, Mrs. Mann—to dispose to the matter before the quarter-sessions at Clerkinwell. And I very much question,” added Mr. Bumble, drawing himself up, “whether the Clerkinwell Sessions will not find themselves in the wrong box before they have done with me.”
“Oh! you mustn’t be too hard upon them, sir,” said Mrs. Mann, coaxingly.
“The Clerkinwell Sessions have brought it upon themselves, ma’am,” replied Mr. Bumble; “and if the Clerkinwell Sessions find that they come off rather worse than they expected, the Clerkinwell Sessions have only themselves to thank.”
There was so much determination and depth of purpose about the menacing manner in which Mr. Bumble delivered himself of these words, that Mrs. Mann appeared quite awed by them. At length she said,
“You’re going by coach, sir? I thought it was always usual to send them paupers in carts.”
“That’s when they’re ill, Mrs. Mann,” said the beadle. “We put the sick paupers into open carts in the rainy weather, to prevent their taking cold.”
“Oh!” said Mrs. Mann.
“The opposition coach contracts for these two; and takes them cheap,” said Mr. Bumble. “They are both in a very low state, and we find it would come two pound cheaper to move ’em than to bury ’em—that is, if we can throw ’em upon another parish, which I think we shall be able to do, if they don’t die upon the road to spite us. Ha! ha! ha!”
When Mr. Bumble had laughed a little while, his eyes again encountered the cocked hat; and he became grave.
“We are forgetting business, ma’am,” said the beadle; “here is your porochial stipend for the month.”
Mr. Bumble produced some silver money rolled up in paper, from his pocketbook; and requested a receipt: which Mrs. Mann wrote.
“It’s very much blotted, sir,” said the farmer of infants; “but it’s formal enough, I dare say. Thank you, Mr. Bumble, sir, I am very much obliged to you, I’m sure.”
Mr. Bumble nodded, blandly, in acknowledgment of Mrs. Mann’s curtsey; and inquired how the children were.
“Bless their dear little hearts!” said Mrs. Mann with emotion, “they’re as well as can be, the dears! Of course, except the two that died last week. And little Dick.”
“Isn’t that boy no better?” inquired Mr. Bumble.
Mrs. Mann shook her head.
“He’s a ill-conditioned, wicious, bad-disposed porochial child that,” said Mr. Bumble angrily. “Where is he?”
“I’ll bring him to you in one minute, sir,” replied Mrs. Mann. “Here, you Dick!”
After some calling, Dick was discovered. Having had his face put under the pump, and dried upon Mrs. Mann’s gown, he was led into the awful presence of Mr. Bumble, the beadle.
The child was pale and thin; his cheeks were sunken; and his eyes large and bright. The scanty parish dress, the livery of his misery, hung loosely on his feeble body; and his young limbs had wasted away, like those of an old man.
Such was the little being who stood trembling beneath Mr. Bumble’s glance; not daring to lift his eyes from the floor; and dreading even to hear the beadle’s voice.
“Can’t you look at the gentleman, you obstinate boy?” said Mrs. Mann.
The child meekly raised his eyes, and encountered those of Mr. Bumble.
“What’s the matter with you, porochial Dick?” inquired Mr. Bumble, with well-timed jocularity.
“Nothing, sir,” replied the child faintly.
“I should think not,” said Mrs. Mann, who had of course laughed very much at Mr. Bumble’s humour.
“You want for nothing, I’m sure.”
“I should like—” faltered the child.
“Heyday!” interposed Mrs. Mann, “I suppose you’re going to say that you do want for something, now? Why, you little wretch—”
“Stop, Mrs. Mann, stop!” said the beadle, raising his hand with a show of authority. “Like what, sir, eh?”
“I should like,” faltered the child, “if somebody that can write, would put a few words down for me on a piece of paper, and fold it up and seal it, and keep it for me, after I am laid in the ground.”
“Why, what does the boy mean?” exclaimed Mr. Bumble, on whom the earnest manner and wan aspect of the child had made some impression: accustomed as he was to such things. “What do you mean, sir?”
“I should like,” said the child, “to leave my dear love to poor Oliver Twist; and to let him know how often I have sat by myself and cried to think of his wandering about in the dark nights with nobody to help him. And I should like to tell him,” said the child pressing his small hands together, and speaking with great fervour, “that I was glad to die when I was very young; for, perhaps, if I had lived to be a man, and had grown old, my little sister who is in Heaven, might forget me, or be unlike me; and it would be so much happier if we were both children there together.”
Mr. Bumble surveyed the little speaker, from head to foot, with indescribable astonishment; and, turning to his companion, said, “They’re all in one story, Mrs. Mann. That out-dacious Oliver had demogalized them all!”
“I couldn’t have believed it, sir” said Mrs. Mann, holding up her hands, and looking malignantly at Dick. “I never see such a hardened little wretch!”
“Take him away, ma’am!” said Mr. Bumble imperiously. “This must be stated to the board, Mrs. Mann.”
“I hope the gentleman will understand that it isn’t my fault, sir?” said Mrs. Mann, whimpering pathetically.
“They shall understand that, ma’am; they shall be acquainted with the true state of the
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