BARRON'S BOOK NOTES
CHARLES DICKENS'S
OLIVER TWIST
CHARLES DICKENS: THE AUTHOR AND HIS TIMES
Few writers are lucky enough to have their first novels become
runaway bestsellers. Yet that is exactly what happened when
25-year-old Charles Dickens published Oliver Twist in 1837.
Many readers already knew of young Dickens. As a journalist, he had
written, under the pen name Boz, gripping newspaper accounts exposing
social conditions in England. In another vein entirely, he had
written a bestselling collection of humorous stories called The
Pickwick Papers. His journalistic sketches showed descriptive power
and the ability to influence people's political ideas; The Pickwick
Papers showed how he could create marvelous characters and sustain
lively comic scenes. But with Oliver Twist, Dickens surprised
everyone by revealing yet another talent--for spinning a rich,
suspenseful web of plot.
One reason why Oliver Twist was so popular was that Dickens
understood what his audience wanted to read and was willing to write
it. He gave them sentimental love scenes, a horrifying glimpse of
the criminal underworld, a virtuous hero in Oliver, and nasty
villains in Bill Sikes and Fagin. And he wrapped it all up in a
complicated, puzzling mystery story. Because Oliver Twist was
published in monthly installments, Dickens could leave his readers in
agonizing suspense from month to month. All across England, readers
eagerly discussed what had happened in the most recent installment
and argued over what they thought would happen in the next one.
Oliver Twist was a part of everyday conversation, just as top-rated
television shows are for us today.
Yet, even though he was young and hungry for fame, Dickens wanted to
do more than just entertain. He challenged his readers to consider
things they would rather have ignored. He drew for them a picture of
London's slums that was shocking in its realism. Victorian authors
were not supposed to acknowledge the existence of drunkards and
prostitutes, but Dickens did. They were not supposed to use street
language, even in dialogue, but Dickens did.
Dickens wasn't the only one concerned about the poor, for poverty and
vagrancy had plagued England since the sixteenth century. In 1834, a
few years before the publication of Oliver Twist, Parliament had
passed a Poor Law intended to end some of the worst abuses against
the indigent. Yet the provision of the bill didn't go far in
providing relief for those who were suffering.
Dickens wanted to do something about the shameful poverty in England.
