Synopses & Reviews
Nine-year-old Oliver has spent his life in a workhouse orphanage, where he becomes notorious for daring to ask for more food. Frustrated and hungry, he runs away to London, where he falls into the company of a gang of clever pickpockets, including Fagin, Bill Sykes, and the Artful Dodger. Oliver's future looks uncertain, until a mysterious plot against him is unraveled by the kind Mr. Brownlow. What will become of poor Oliver Twist?
Synopsis
Puffin Classics bring the very best children's stories to a new generation.
The world-famous story of a young boy who seeks his fortune on the streets of London, introduced by the hugely popular children's author, Garth Nix.
After Oliver Twist asks nasty Mr Bumble for more food, he has to flee the workhouse for the streets of London. Here he meets the Artful Dodger, who leads him to Fagin and his gang of pickpockets. When a thieving mission goes wrong, Oliver narrowly avoids prison and finds himself in the care of kind Mr Brownlow. But Fagin and the brutal Bill Sikes go in search of the young orphan, determined to drag him back . . .
Synopsis
The classic story of a young boy who seeks his fortune on the streets of London. After Oliver Twist asks nasty Mr Bumble for more food, he has to flee the workhouse for the streets of London. Here he meets the Artful Dodger, who leads him to Fagin and his gang of pickpockets. When a thieving mission goes wrong, Oliver narrowly avoids prison and finds himself in the care of kind Mr Brownlow. But Fagin and the brutal Bill Sikes go in search of the young orphan, determined to drag him back . . . With an inspirational and light-hearted introduction by Garth Nix, Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens is one of the twelve wonderful classic stories being relaunched in Puffin Classics in March 2008.
About the Author
Charles Dickens was born on February 7, 1812, in Landport, Portsea, England. He died in Kent on June 9, 1870. The second of eight children of a family continually plagued by debt, the young Dickens came to know not only hunger and privation, but also the horror of the infamous debtors' prison and the evils of child labor. A turn of fortune in the shape of a legacy brought release from the nightmare of prison and "slave" factories and afforded Dickens the opportunity of two years' formal schooling at Wellington House Academy. He worked as an attorney’s clerk and newspaper reporter until his
Sketches by Boz (1836) and
The Pickwick Papers (1837) brought him the amazing and instant success that was to be his for the remainder of his life. In later years, the pressure of serial writing, editorial duties, lectures, and social commitments led to his separation from Catherine Hogarth after twenty-three years of marriage. It also hastened his death at the age of fifty-eight, when he was characteristically engaged in a multitude of work.
Garth Nix is the author of the bestselling Old Kingdom and The Seventh Tower series.