When Is a Book Not a Book? Oliver Twist in Context

The New York Public Library, George Arents Collection of Books in Parts

"Oliver asking for more," the first George Cruikshank illustration to Oliver Twist, stands facing the first chapter in the February 1837 number of Bentley's Miscellany. The title (which recalls a William Hogarth "progress"), the name of the author ("Boz"), and the reference to "the town of Mudfog" (which relates this story to one that appeared in the January number) were changed in later editions so that the novel would stand on its own as the work of Charles Dickens.

Back