Oliver Twist, Charles Dickens
Oliver Twist, Charles Dickens
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Oliver Twist
Or, The Parish Boy’s Progress

Author: Charles Dickens

Narrator: Martin Jarvis

Unabridged: 16 hr 17 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 02/16/2007

Synopsis

One of Dickens’ most popular novels, Oliver Twist tells the story of a young workhouse orphan who escapes into the mean backstreets of Victorian London. There, he is thrust into a den of thieves where some of Dickens’ most depraved villains preside: the incorrigible Artful Dodger, the barbarous bully Bill Sikes, and the terrible Fagin, whose knavery threatens to send them all to the gallows. A novel with autobiographical overtones, this was the first of Dickens’ works to realistically portray London’s impoverished underworld and to illustrate his belief that poverty leads to crime. At the heart of the drama, however, is Oliver, the orphan whose unsullied goodness leads him to salvation, and who represents Dickens’ belief in the principle of good triumphing at last.

About Charles Dickens

Charles Dickens (1812 – 1870) was an English writer and social critic. He created some of the world's most well-known fictional characters and is generally regarded as the greatest novelist of the Victorian period. During his life, his works enjoyed unprecedented popularity, and by the twentieth century he was widely seen as a literary genius by critics and scholars. His novels and short stories continue to be widely popular.

About Martin Jarvis

Martin Jarvis has starred in many West End productions and on Broadway in By Jeeves. His screen appearances include Titanic, Murder She Wrote, Miss Marple, Numb3rs, Inspector Morse, and Stargate Atlantis. He is an award-winning audiobook performer and has received an OBE from the Queen for his services to drama.

Reviews

Goodreads review by emma on October 31, 2024

welcome to...OCTOBER TWIST. this is project long classics, in which i read intimidating books over a whole month and my little treat is i get to come up with a title + time-based pun as i do so. charles dickens books are some of the scariest of all, so only a truly irresistible (read: terrible) pun co......more

Goodreads review by Paul on March 09, 2012

Oliver Twist THE BOOK is crap and has NO songs in it, I couldn't believe it. So I googled and get this, it turns out they put those in the movie and Dickens had nothing to do with it! But since they were the best bit of the film, you can understand my horror and bereft sense of disappointment when I......more

Goodreads review by Mario the lone bookwolf on July 06, 2023

The dawn of the use of social criticism as main plot element while overusing the modern readers' tolerance for suspension of disbelief by making the whole story a bit too unrealistic optimistic and too full of coincidences, a kind of trademark of Dickens work as he didn´t MacGuffined and Chekhoved e......more

Goodreads review by Bill on October 26, 2020

In recent years, I have become bewitched by all things gothic, and I was curious to discover to what extent gothic tropes and examplars may have influenced the imagery and structure of Dicken's first serious novel. Specifically, I was interested in how gothic elements might be expressed in "Oliver T......more

Goodreads review by Lisa of Troy on August 18, 2024

Beams of Brillance Let’s start off with a confession: Oliver Twist is boring. Good…we got that out of the way. While the plot is tolerable, it can be very slow paced. For example, in one vignette, a dying woman has a confession to make. But it took an entire chapter to get there. Come on! Just spit it......more

Quotes

“With his precise but subtle reading of the author’s irony, even when it occasionally lapses into sermons, Jarvis conveys to the reader all of Dickens’ stinging anger at Victorian hypocrisy. He brings all of this nasty world to life but does it in such a graceful and relaxed way that Dickens’ essential hope in the ultimate goodness of man and faith in the Victorian order are preserved intact.” AudioFile

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