Oliver Twist Bibliography

OLIVER TWIST

Seclected Bibliography

Compiled by Jon Michael Varese
for the 1998 Dickens Universe

Customarily, the Universe singles out a few titles that we urge all faculty and graduate students to prepare in advance, but because the critical literature for Dickens is vast and expanding, we generally limit the suggestions to only a few selections. These items have been indicated by an asterisk (*).

EDITIONS

The recommended edition of Dickens's Oliver Twist for the 1998 Universe is the Penguin edition: Dickens, Charles. Oliver Twist, ed. Peter Fairclough. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1985.

For the more ambitious reader of Dickens, the Universe also recommends, the Norton Critical Edition of Oliver Twist, edited by Fred Kaplan (New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1993), which contains backgrounds and sources, early reviews, and a wide-ranging selection of criticism, in addition to the authoritative text.

The definitive edition of Oliver Twist is the Clarendon edition, edited, and with an introduction by Kathleen Tillotson (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1966).

A helpful resource is David Paroissien's The Companion to Oliver Twist (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1992), which provides excellent annotations and historical contexts for Oliver Twist, chapter by chapter.

CRITICISM

Armstrong, Nancy. "History in the House of Culture: Social Disorder and Domestic Fiction in Early Victorian England." Poetics Today. 1986. (7/4) 641-671.

Brantlinger, Patrick. "How Oliver Twist Learned to Read, and What He Read." Bucknell Review. 1990. (34) 59-81.

Collins, Philip. "Murder: From Bill Sikes to Bradley Headstone," in Dickens and Crime. London: MacMillan Press, 1962.

Daleski, H.M. "Oliver Twist: Home, Street, and Virtue." Hasifrut: Q for St of Lit. 1970. (2) 333-346.

Dowling, Constance. "Cervantes, Dickens, and the World of the Juvenile Criminal." Dickensian. 1986. (82) 151-157.

Ginsburg, Michal Peled. "Truth and Persuasion: The Language of Realism and of Ideology inOliver Twist." Novel. 1987. (20/3/Spr) 220-236.

Heller, Deborah. "The Outcast as Villain and Victim: Jews in Dickens's Oliver Twist and Our Mutual Friend," in Jewish Presences in English Literature, eds. Derek Cohen and Deborah Heller. Montreal: McGill Queen's UP, 1990.

Hollington, Michael. "Dickens and Cruikshank as Physiognomers in Oliver Twist." Dickens Quarterly. 1990 (7/2) 243-254.

* Jordan, John O. "The Purloined Handkerchief." Dickens Studies Annual. 1989. (18) 1-17.

Kettle, Arnold. "Dickens: Oliver Twist," in An Introduction to the English Novel. London: Hutchinson & Co., 1961.

Kincaid, James R. "Oliver Twist: Laughter and the Rhetoric of Attack," in Dickens and the Rhetoric of Laughter. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1971.

Marcus, Steven. "The Wise Child," and "Who Is Fagin?" in Dickens: From Pickwick to Dombey. New York: Harper Collins, 1965.

Miller, D.A. The Novel and the Police. Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1988. Particularly pp. 2-10.

Miller, J. Hillis. "Oliver Twist," in Charles Dickens: The World of His Novels. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1958.

* Patten, Robert L. George Cruikshank's Life, Times, and Art. 2 vols. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1992. Particularly chapters 27 and 46.

Patten, Robert L. "Capitalism and Compassion in Oliver Twist." Studies in the Novel. 1969. (1) 207-221.

Schlicke, Paul. "Bumble and the Poor Law Satire of Oliver Twist." Dickensian. 1975. (71) 149-156.

Slater, Michael. "On Reading Oliver Twist." Dickensian. 1974. (70) 71-81.

* Tillotson, Kathleen. Introduction to the Clarendon Edition of Oliver Twist. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1966.

* Tracy, Robert. "'The Old Story' and Inside Stories: Modish Fiction and Fictional Modes in Oliver Twist." Dickens Studies Annual. 1988. (17) 1-33.

Wheeler, Burton M. "The Text and Plan of Oliver Twist." Dickens Studies Annual. 1984. (12) 41-61.

* Wolff, Larry. "'The Boys Are Pickpockets and the Girl is a Prostitute': Gender and Juvenile Criminality in Early Victorian England from Oliver Twist to London Labour." New Literary History. 1996. (27/2) 227-249.

For a thorough bibliography of Oliver Twist criticism before 1986, see David Parroissien's Oliver Twist: An Annotated Bibliography. New York: Garland Publishers, 1986.

APPENDIX TO THE Oliver Twist BIBLIOGRAPHY

In addition to Kathleen Tillotson's introduction to the Clarendon edition of the novel, Wheeler provides valuable insight on the text and the construction of the novel in general.
On author/illustrator collaboration, see Hollington's article in addition to Patten's more extensive study. Chapter 46 of Patten's book explores information about Cruikshank's claims, lodged after Dickens's death, to have originated Oliver Twist himself.
Heller provides excellent historical contexts in addition to Wolff, and manages to bring up most previous articles on Fagin and the Jew. After page 52, Heller focuses more specifically on Our Mutual Friend, and readers should feel free to stop there if they so desire. Her notes (at the back of the book) are a useful extension of her argument.
For a general thematic reading of the novel, see Hillis Miller's chapter in addition to Kincaid, Tracy, and Jordan.