![]() ![]() I know exactly why Oliver appealed to us what kid doesn’t fantasize about being liberated of parents? But why were Victorian writers so into orphans? Oliver set the trend (the novel was eight chapters into its serial run when Victoria was crowned queen, in June of 1837), and then there’s Jane Eyre and Heathcliff and Daniel Deronda and Dickens’ own Pip and Estella, in Great Expectations, to name just a few. ![]() We used to listen to the soundtrack on car trips. Also, we loved the musical, Oliver!, with its boy soprano and jaunty exclamation point. We loved the Artful Dodger and his band of pickpockets, who try to teach Oliver to steal for a living. We loved the part when meek little orphan Oliver, born out of wedlock in a workhouse, asks the proprietor in vain for a refill of his bowl of gruel. My grandmother read it to me and my sister when we were young. Oliver Twist was Dickens’ second novel, and my first. ![]()
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