One of the great novelist\'s most popular works, Oliver Twist is also the purest distillation of Dickens\'s genius.
His specialty, both in teaching and in numerous influential articles and books, was Milton..
He was the author of more than twenty books, including novels, a biography of John Donne, and two memoirs.
Edward Le Comte (1916-2004) was professor of English at the State University of New York at Albany, and he also taught at Columbia, his alma mater, and the University of California at Berkley.
Distinguished writer, teacher, and critic Frederick Busch is the author of more than twenty works of fiction, including North , Girls , and The Mutual Friend , a novel about Charles Dickens.
He died in 1870, leaving his final novel, The Mystery of Edwin Drood , unfinished.
Despite the scandal, Dickens remained a public figure, appearing often to read his fiction.
Dickens married Catherine Hogarth in 1836, and the couple had nine children before separating in 1858, when he began a long affair with Ellen Ternan, a young actress.
His many classic books include Oliver Twist , Great Expectations , A Tale of Two Cities , A Christmas Carol , and Bleak House .
Subsequent works were published serially in periodicals and cemented his reputation as a master of colorful characterization and a harsh critic of social evils and corrupt institutions.
After a turn of fortune in the shape of a legacy, Dickens was able to work as an attorney\'s clerk and newspaper reporter until his first novel, The Pickwick Papers (1837), brought him instant success at age twenty-five.
Young Dickens came to know not only hunger and privation but also the evils of child labor when he had to go to work in a factory at age twelve.
Born in Portsmouth, Hampshire, England in 1812, he had a happy early childhood, which was interrupted when his father was sent to debtors\' prison.
Yet he managed to do it without making himself hated, and, more than this, the very people he attacked have welcomed him so completely that he has become a national institution himself." With an Introduction by Frederick Busch and an Afterword by Edward Le Comte About the Author: Charles Dickens was perhaps the most popular English novelist of the nineteenth century.
Dickens attacked English institutions with a ferocity that has never since been approached.
According to George Orwell, "in Oliver Twist...
Only Dickens can give us nightmare and daydream together.
Oliver Twist presents some of the most sinister characters in Dickens: the master thief, Fagin; the leering Artful Dodger; the murderer, Bill Sikes...along with some of his most sentimental and comical characters.
This tale of the orphan who is reared in a workhouse and runs away to London is a novel of social protest, a morality tale, and a detective story.
One of the great novelist\'s most popular works, Oliver Twist is also the purest distillation of Dickens\'s genius
