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

The New York Public Library, Berg Collection of English and American Literature

George Cruikshank's bust self-portrait, engraved by C. E. Wagstaff, appeared in the first number of George Cruikshank's Omnibus, in May 1841. The bust highlights Cruikshank's strong nose and forehead and his penetrating gaze. According to a friend of both Dickens's and Cruikshank's, the latter's blue eyes "flashed as brightly as the eyes of Mr. Dickens, but they had no merriment—only keenness, and a certain fierceness in them."

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