Oliver Twist(1838)is Charles Dickens'secondnovel.The book was originally published inBentley's Miscellany as a serial,in monthly installments that began appearing in themonth of February 1837 and continued throughApril 1839,originally intended to form part ofDickens’serial The Mudfog Papers.George Cruik shank provided one steel etching per month to is ustrate each installment.Oliver Twist is the first novel in the English language to center throughout on a child protagonist and is also notable for Dickens'unromantic portrayal of criminals and their sordid lives.The book’S subtitle,The ParishBoy's Progress,alludes to Bunyan’s TheHlgrim'sProgress andalsoto apairofpopular18th-century caricature series by William Hogarth,A Rake's Progress and A Harlot's Progress. AMONG other public buildings in a certain town,which for many reasons it will be prudent tO refrain from mentioning.and to which 1will assign no fictitious name,there is one anciently common tO mosttowns,great or small:tO wit,a workhouse;and in this workhouse wasborn;on a day and date which I need not trouble myself to repeat,inasmuch as it can be 0f no possible consequence to the reader,inthis stage of the business at a11 events;the item of mortality whosename is prefixed to the head of this chapten For a 10ng time after it was ushered into this world of sorrow andtrouble,by the parish surgeon,it remained a matter of considerable doubt whether the child would survive tO bearany name at all;in which case it is somewhatmore than probable that these memoirs would never have appeared;or,if they had,that being comprised within a couple of pages,they wouldhave possessed the inestimable merit of beingthe most concise and faithful specimen of biograph$extant in the literature of any age or country. 作者简介:Charles Dickens(1812-1870),themost popular English novelist ofthe Victorian era,was a vigoroussocial campaigner,both in hisown personal endeavours as wellas through the recurrent themesof his literary enterprise.The popularity of Dickens'Snovels and short stories hasmeant that they have never gone Out of print.Many of Dickens’SnovelS first apPeared inperiodicals and magazines inserialized form-a popular formatfor fiction at the time-and.unlike many other authors whocompleted entire novels beforeserial production commenced,Dickens 0ften composed hisworks in parts,in the order inwhichtheyweremeanttoappear.Such a practice lent his stories aparticular rhythm,punctuated byone minor“cliffhanger”afteranother,to keep the publiclooking forward to the nextjnstallment.
CHAPTER I CHAPTER II CHAPTER III CHAPTER IV CHAPTER V CHAPTER VI CHAPTER VII CHAPTER VIII CHAPTER IX CHAPTER X CHAPTER XI CHAPTER XII CHAPTER XIII CHAPTER XIV CHAPTER XV CHAPTER XVI CHAPTER XVII CHAPTER XVIII CHAPTER XIX CHAPTER XX CHAPTER XXI CHAPTER XXII CHAPTER XXIII CHAPTER XXIV CHAPTER XXV CHAPTER XXVI CHAPTER XXVII CHAPTER XXVIII CHAPTER XXIX CHAPTER XXX CHAPTER XXXI CHAPTER XXXII CHAPTER XXXIII CHAPTER XXXIV CHAPTER XXXV CHAPTER XXXVI CHAPTER XXXVII CHAPTER XXXVIII CHAPTER XXXIX CHAPTER XL CHAPTER XLI CHAPTER XLII CHAPTER XLIII CHAPTER XLIV CHAPTER XLv CHAPTER XLVI CHAPTER XLVII CHAPTER XLVIII CHAPTER XLIX CHAPTER L CHAPTER LI CHAPTER LII CHAPTER LIII