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

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

Both the author Harrison Ainsworth and illustrator George Cruikshank sought out contemporary accounts and pictures of the famous escapes of eighteenth-century thief Jack Sheppard when they collaborated on a novel about the young Jack that was serialized in Bentley's Miscellany as the successor to Oliver Twist. Cruikshank's "comic strip" depiction of Jack's escape from Newgate prison follows earlier prints but puts the action into a dramatic narrative. Stage versions of the novel followed Cruikshank's plates.

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