Luckily for Oliver, as for Dickens himself, things turned out rather well in the end. An often sarcastic comment on the Poor Laws, which forced many into hard labour, it must have drawn on Dickens's own childhood experiences of poverty. Balancing suspense, melodrama, pathos and humour, it paints a picture of a city tainted by social deprivation. The book first appeared in monthly instalments from 1837-39. He appeals to his readers to recognise that reforms were desperately needed to improve the living conditions of the poor. In it he refutes claims that 'Jacob's Island' (the squalid South London slum depicted in the book) did not exist in reality. This is Dickens's handwritten preface to the 'cheap edition' of the book, first published in 1850. It has proven to be one of the best loved novels in the history of literature. Oliver Twist is Charles Dickens's second novel, about an orphan boy whose good heart and healthy appetite help him escape the terrible underworld of crime and poverty in 19th century London.
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