Dickensians! discussion

OLIVER TWIST: THREAD 2

Original title Oliver Twist; or, The Parish Boy's Progress



Film poster for Oliver Twist in 1948

V – July 1837 - chapters 9–11
VI – August 1837 - chapters 12–13
VII – September 1837 - chapters 14–15
VIII – November 1837 - chapters 16–17

LINKS TO CHAPTERS: (ongoing)

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Installment 5

Chapter 9:

The next day Oliver finds himself alone with Fagin. Fagin takes a metal box from a hiding place and examines its contents, which include a gold watch and some jewellery.



"Fagin" - Sol Eytinge Jr. 1867

When Fagin catches Oliver looking at him, he grabs a knife and demands to know whether Oliver was awake an hour ago:



"What's that? What do you watch me for?" Felix O. C. Darley

Satisfied with the boy’s assurances that he was not, Fagin tells Oliver that the things in the box are his.

Soon Jack Dawkins returns with another of the boys, Charley Bates:



The Artful Dodger and Charley Bates" - Sol Eytinge Jr. 1867

The two give Fagin pocketbooks and handkerchiefs. Fagin tells Oliver that the boys have made them, and Oliver is puzzled when Charley laughs at this. Fagin and the boys play a game that involves the boys trying to take things out of Fagin’s pockets without his noticing.



"Fagan [sic] and Oliver Twist" Felix O. C. Darley 1888



"The merry old gentleman's pretty little game" - Frederic W. Pailthorpe 1886



"The Thieves' Kitchen. Oliver is Shown "How It Is Done"" - Harry Furniss 1910

Two friendly young women arrive, have a few drinks, and leave with Jack Dawkins and Charley Bates. Then Fagin teaches Oliver how to pick the embroidery from handkerchiefs.



George Cruikshank's original sketch for Fagin 1837

In Chapter 8, along with Oliver, we met Fagin, who is one of literature’s most notorious characters. After today’s chapter, we now have a fair idea of what Fagin and his gang of boys are up to, although innocent Oliver does not seem to have a clue.

We know exactly where Fagin lives, as Charles Dickens told us. Interestingly, his den in Field-lane had been the location of the hide-out of the notorious eighteenth-century thief Jonathan Wild. The shops there were well known for selling silk handkerchiefs bought from pickpockets. One of Charles Dickens's letters alluding to some of his work being pilfered angrily continues with: "when my handkerchief is gone ... I may see it flaunting with renovated beauty in Field-lane."

With Fagin’s talk of “peaching” i.e. informing on or give accusatory information against an accomplice and “the drop” i.e. execution by hanging, it’s clear that Fagin speaks in the slang language of the criminal world.

Charles Dickens based Fagin on Ikey Solomon, a notorious thief-trainer and fence of the time:



Ikey Solomon

I will share more details about him when it doesn’t preempt the action!

However Charles Dickens named Fagin after a boy he worked with in the book-blacking factory, Bob Fagan (different spelling), whose name is actually Irish. Bob Fagan had taught him how to wrap and tie the pots of blacking, defended him against taunts from the other boys, and even tended him when he was ill, as Jenny mentioned earlier.

Charles Dickens never explained why he immortalised such a kind boy by giving his name to a personification of the devil! Because that’s what Fagin is, of course, as the subtext indicates, with his pitchfork and cunning. I seem to remember from John Forster that later in life Charles Dickens tried to find Bob Fagan, but he had disappeared into obscurity.

Antisemitism

Victorian London had a substantial Jewish population, and England, like other parts of Europe, sadly had a strong anti-Semitic tradition. The Jewish fence was a common stereotype. I think one of the main criticisms of Oliver Twist has always been the misperception of antisemitism on the author’s behalf, in portraying Fagin as a “dirty Jew”.

Sadly, it is in keeping with the time in Europe, as Claudia mentioned, and also specifically in England, centuries earlier. William Shakespeare had famously created the unprincipled Jew, Shylock, who was a usurer in The Merchant of Venice in 1596, setting the play in 16th Century Venice. It’s disheartening to realise that even over 200 years later, that particular prejudice was still rife and actually ingrained into English society. With all great authors we hope that they will somehow manage to step outside the mores of their time, but maybe we expect too much.

Up to a point, Charles Dickens did manage to do that—but only later. Apparently he had expressed surprise, when the Jewish community complained about the stereotypical depiction of Fagin. Charles Dickens had befriended James Davis, a Jewish man, and when he eventually came to sell his London residence, he sold the lease of Tavistock House to the Davis family, as an attempt to make restitution. The Letters of Charles Dickens from 1833 to 1870 include this sentence in the narrative to 1860:

“This winter was the last spent at Tavistock House … He made arrangements for the sale of Tavistock House to Mr Davis, a Jewish gentleman, and he gave up possession of it in September.”

There is other additional evidence of a rethink, and we have to remember that Charles Dickens was a very young man—still only 25—when he wrote Oliver Twist in 1837. He may have been influenced by the mores of the time, or by the stereotype in English literature. I personally think he did not expect this reaction, the evidence being because he was basing his invented character on a real person, Ikey Solomon, and not an entire race of people. His original readers were not to know that basing some of his characters on actual people would become a writing habit, but we do!

For instance I can think of 7 or 8 characters in Charles Dickens's next novel Nicholas Nickleby, who are based on people who existed in real life at the time, (see my review for details if you like!) This included another of whom he also got in trouble about (view spoiler)[ Miss Mowcher (hide spoiler)] Because Ikey Solomon was notorious, Charles Dickens probably expected people to recognise this allusion to him, and be both thrilled and horrified by the larger than life crafty criminal. Probably the fact that he was Jewish is immaterial.

But Charles Dickens always responded to his public. When editing Oliver Twist for the “Charles Dickens edition” of his works, released in 1867, he eliminated most references to Fagin as “the Jew”. This edition featured new prefaces, written by Charles Dickens himself, who also made yet more minor corrections to the text.

And in his last completed novel, Our Mutual Friend, (1864) Charles Dickens created Mr. Riah, a wholly moral Jewish character who along with one other character (view spoiler)[ Lizzie Hexam (hide spoiler)] exemplifies the strongest positive aspect of that novel. Yet in 1864 there was still much antisemitism around, both in real life and in literature, and would be for many years to come.

Charles Dickens was certainly not replying to overwhelming public demand, as we might assume. This fact, plus Dickens own expressed wishes, are worth bearing in mind before attributing a cynical side to his motives. Public perceptions had not changed very much in the intervening years.

Please as always, do not view this through a 21st century lens. Actually for a writer from the 19th century (or any century) to create such different characters only demonstrates to me that one cannot select one aspect of them, such as their dwarfism, or having a lot of money, or being very fat, or being an orphan—or being a Jew—and thereby deduce that other aspects of them such as their moral makeup will be transferred to other characters of the same type, or in this case, religion.

References to “The Jew” in Oliver Twist

Fagin is referred to quite frequently from Oliver’s point of view as “the merry old gentleman” and “the pleasant old gentleman”, and although there is irony here, I always feel that Fagin is actually being kind to the destitute boys (albeit for his own ends), when few others would be.

In fact I suppose the whole character of Fagin is ironic, in a way. Victorian society placed so much value and emphasis on industry, capitalism and individualism. And who embodies this most successfully? Fagin! We have seen his box of pretty things, and already suspect that this miser has gained them through thievery. Then we see his methods for teaching the boys to be pickpockets, and two pretty girls arrive—so we have to suspect him of operating in the illicit businesses of (view spoiler)[theft and prostitution (hide spoiler)].

He could be viewed as a sort of bogeyman, as he makes children into thieves. Charles Dickens also invests Fagin with symbols that are normally reserved for the Devil. When we first met Fagin in chapter 8, he was roasting some sausages on an open fire, “with a toasting fork in his hand”. This must be important, as Charles Dickens mentions it twice. Then in today’s chapter we find Fagin equipped with a fire-shovel. Also the term “the merry old gentleman” is a euphemistic term for the Devil.

Another reference coming up in chapter 19 is (view spoiler)[ “Don’t you know the devil when he’s got a great-coat on?” (hide spoiler)], but we haven’t met the character who says that, yet.

Fagin’s “philosophy” is that the group’s interests are best maintained if every individual looks out for himself, saying, “a regard for number one holds us all together, and must do so, unless we would all go to pieces in company.” One critic has pointed out that Fagin seems to identify himself with the good Samaritan of the New Testament parable.

Fagin is certainly a complicated character who can be viewed on many levels.

And a little more …

Events in Dickens’ Life

So Charles Dickens’s original readers had a break of 2 months (rather than our two days!) between our chapters 8 and 9. He and Catherine had been married just over a year. They had only just moved to Doughty Street (the Charles Dickens museum I am standing outside) from chambers at Furnival’s Inn two months earlier, in March, with Mary, Kate’s young 17 year old sister. Now after Mary's death (see previous thread) he and Catherine brokenheartedly went to Mary Hogarth’s funeral.

A lot happened in those two months between May and July 1837, as in June Victoria was also crowned queen!

And even more …

Illustrations, and Felix O. C. Darley

There was no illustration by George Cruikshank for this chapter, but the later illustrators mostly based their interpretation of Fagin’s appearance both on Charles Dickens’s description in chapter 8 (also in the summary) and George Cruikshank’s illustration for that chapter, as a stereotypical figure straight out of melodrama; a sinister figure who is a master criminal.

However I’ve also included one by the American illustrator Felix Octavius Carr Darley (1822 - 1888) (usually referred to as Felix O. C. Darley) which I like very much. He was born in Philadelphia, and was the son of an English actor. Felix O. C. Darley is largely known for his illustrations to Edgar Allan Poe, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, and Washington Irving, though he also made some attractive frontispieces for later editions of Charles Dickens’s novels. Prior to this he had made 500 illustrations for other authors. Felix O. C. Darley lived in New York City for a whole and then Delaware, where Charles Dickens visited him in 1867, on his second tour of the USA.

Sadly Felix O. C. Darley only made 4 illustrations for Oliver Twist altogether, and even those were in 2 different editions. The first two were frontispieces for a 2 volume edition in 1888, and the later 2 were for a book of his illustrations called “Character Sketches for Dickens”. The technique he used is called photogravure. I’m thinking Sam will like these, with the light and shadow, as it is reminiscent of film noir.

It’s noticeable that Felix O. C. Darley does not include any other boys in the scene, so we concentrate just on Oliver and his relationship with Fagin. But look at Fagin! This is a smiling, genial, quite slender man, standing by the fire preparing the food, while he playfully engages in the pickpocket game with Oliver. He has an orthodox beard and wears a gaberdine, both characteristic of orthodox Jewish men. But I can’t see anything to object to in this illustration. For me, this is Fagin seen from Oliver’s point of view, and entirely consistent with Charles Dickens’s words.

I’ve also included George Cruikshank's original sketch for Fagin, for contrast. This wasn’t an illustration as such, and completed before he knew the rest of the story. But what a different interpretation! We can see the craftiness and malignity here.

If anyone would like to edit or move their posts from the previous thread to this one, where they are better placed, as we gradually learn far more about Fagin, please do so 😊

Over to you, with a reminder that this installment has 3 chapters, and actually moves the story on quite a lot, perhaps to make up for Charles Dickens’s missing month.

While Oliver is watching Fagin looking at his treasures, Dickens mentions a piece with "some very minute inscription on it" that Fagin tries to decode. There is a mystery here: What is this object, and how does it connect to our story?

I really like the way we as the readers can see Fagin is a criminal, but to Oliver he is the kindest adult he's yet met. And, as you pointed out Jean, Fagin does seam to care about these boys more than anyone else would. Whose the real criminal here?

Thank you for all this Jean, particularly for explaining the Jewish components of Dickens's novels and how readers reacted back then. We are indeed attempted to view things through our 21st century lens or/and our own backgrounds and also History (the Holocaust).

As we are getting better acquainted with Fagin and his "trade", I noticed the contrast between him, his "associates", or "employees", their well oiled routine and Oliver's understandable candour about where he actually landed: pocket-books, handkerchiefs (we remember how Oliver was watching all those handkerchiefs in the previous chapter) and very nice ladies with too much make-up, his companions and himself training pickpocketing as a pleasant game...

Interesting allusions: fork, fire, fire-shovel, old gentleman like Old Harry(right?)

Bionic Jean wrote: "If anyone would like to edit or move their posts from the previous thread to this one, where they are better placed, as we gradually learn far more about Fagin, please do so 😊 "

Jean I've just copied-and-pasted the gist of my comment from the previous thread below. (I can also delete it on the previous thread to eliminate the cross-posting, if you want me to.)

This is Dickens' own response, in an 1863 letter to a Mrs. Eliza Davis, the wife of a Jewish banker (he was on friendly terms with the couple, having sold his London House to them in 1860), to the suggestion that the characterization of Fagin was invidious to Jewish people in general:

"I must take leave to say, that if there be any general feeling on the part of the intelligent Jewish people, that I have done them what you describe as 'a great wrong' they are a far less sensible, a far less just, and a far less good-tempered people than I have always supposed them to be. Fagin, in Oliver Twist, is a Jew, because it unfortunately was true of the time to which the story refers, that this class of criminal almost invariably was a Jew. But surely no sensible man or woman of your persuasion can fail to observe – firstly, that all the rest of the wicked dramatis personae are Christians, and secondly, that he is called a 'Jew' not because of his religion, but because of his race. If I were to write a story, in which I described a Frenchman or a Spaniard as 'the Roman Catholic,' I should do a very indecent and unjustifiable thing; but I make mention of Fagin as a Jew, because he is one of the Jewish people, and because it conveys that kind of idea of him which I should give my readers of a Chinaman, by calling him Chinese. … I always speak well of them (the Jewish people) whether in public, or in private, and bear my testimony (as I ought to do) to their perfect good faith in such transactions as I have ever had with them."

It's also worth noting that Fagin (who is definitely not an observant Jew --his character in the movie Oliver dresses like a Hasidic Jew, but in the book he certainly doesn't!) is not portrayed as being villainous because he's ethnically Jewish. Rather, he's an individual person who happens to be ethnically Jewish, but who's villainous because he's opted to shape his character by making villainous choices to the same moral options that confront all of us, and to which humans of all races have the same range of possibilities in choice.

I'm old enough to remember the days in the 1960s, when American network TV was just beginning to incorporate black characters. The early ones were always depicted as positive, even saintly and faultless, because writers felt a pressure to avoid any portrayal that could suggest that blacks can have the same flaws as the rest of us. Commenting on this, a perceptive article in TV Guide observed that "Television will never be really integrated until we have a Negro villain." (That finally happened a few years later.) I think the same consideration applies to the artistic treatment of any minority group. Until we see characters as individuals, not as official representatives of Group X, Y, or Z, we're still categorizing human beings in racial boxes.

Interesting observations Werner. Thanks.

Glad I was able to contribute something, Sue!

I was taken a little aback when Dickens continually refers to Fagin not by his name but as a Jew or the Jew, antisemitic popped into my head immediately. I appreciated all the comments about the society of the times and the thoughts about Jews. And yes, so unfortunate that antisemitism still exists and is on the rise today.
Despite all the symbolism that equates Fagin with the Devil, and therefore an evil & corrupting influence; I found him to be attractive character because he is full of contradictions and sometimes those make the most interesting characters! Additionally, I thought his way of "training" his boys was quite creative.
The character I played in the 8th grade, Bet, has made her appearance. In the musical she definitely wasn't a whore and was much younger than Nancy. So, a surprise to me that she appears to be nearer to age to Nancy and apparently a prostitute as well. Humph!!

Werner: thank you for this interesting post that illustrates very well what I hinted to earlier about Mrs Davis!
Indeed I don't think that Fagin would run this kind of "business" in a novel by Dickens if he were a Hasid. (It would be more likely to come across a dishonest or abusive Hasid in a Novel by Naomi Ragen, e.g. Jephthah's Daughter.)

Sue:
I was almost even more upset by illustrations than by the way Fagin is spoken of by the narrative voice. Some illustrations reminded me of caricatures seen at Yad Vashem, Jerusalem, and Muzeion Hatfutsot in Tel Aviv. It reminded me of the infamous Nazi propaganda abundantly displayed in Der Stürmer by Julius Streicher and others.
Still, the narrative voice could have said something like "There was a Jew standing, etc..." once for all instead of repeating it many times.

We do meet distorted and exaggerated Jewish characters later on in Balzac's novels (Gobseck as a pawner, but about thirty Jewish characters, pawners, bankers, jewelers, in the whole Human Comedy, some loaded with stereotypes, some more nuanced) and in Dostoevsky' Crime and Punishment (allusions to some pawners or bankers) and Brothers Karamazov.

Thank all for these comments and insights.

Erich - "Dickens mentions a piece with "some very minute inscription on it" that Fagin tries to decode. There is a mystery here: What is this object, and how does it connect to our story?"

What a fantastic observation! Let's bear this one in mind.

Jenny - "I really like the way we as the readers can see Fagin is a criminal, but to Oliver he is the kindest adult he's yet met. And, as you pointed out Jean, Fagin does seam to care about these boys more than anyone else would. Whose the real criminal here?"

Beautifully put. And this will be great to revisit at various points in the story too.

Chris - "I found [Fagin] to be attractive character because he is full of contradictions and sometimes those make the most interesting characters!"

Oh yes! And parts of this will doubtless make us squirm. We need to keep firmly focussed in order to accept this character as Charles Dickens intended us to i.e. as one individual person (like Ikey Solomon) and not representative of a whole race of people. Otherwise we are in danger of throwing out the baby with the bathwater.

Claudia - Yes, "Old Harry" is another euphemism in English for the Devil.

And thank you very much for the additional details about the Jewish Faith. Usually we have a couple of Jewish members joining in our group reads, (as well as several other Faiths and those who have none) so please do speak up with your viewpoint and knowledge if so! (I'm missing a couple of regulars, but perhaps it's a conscious decision about avoiding this novel. Understandable but sad. 😥)

Werner - Thank you so much for moving your post (I'll sort out the other thread) and thus amplifying about Mr. and Mrs. Davis, the couple to whom Charles Dickens sold his house. 😊 This is a very interesting letter; I think it was quoted by John Forster in his biography.

Yes, the depiction of Fagin in "Oliver!" is inaccurate, as much of that film is (entertaining though it may be!) Remember the first description we have of The Artful Dodger for instance, which I put in the summary. He is not a cute moppet, but:

"a snub-nosed, flat-browed, common-faced boy enough; and as dirty a juvenile as one would wish to see; but he had about him all the airs and manners of a man. He was short of his age: with rather bow-legs, and little, sharp, ugly eyes.”

By the way, the incorrect depiction of Fagin in "Oliver!" is lifted from the 1948 film (which otherwise is pretty faithful to the book). It has been noted by critics that the screenplay for that was used rather than the text of the novel. And as Charles Dickens made clear in this letter, (sent much later than the novel of course, (as I said), in 1863.) Fagin was Jewish by birth and race, not by his chosen religion. Anyway we can see from that very first scene in chapter 8 that he is not a good Jew, because he is frying sausages, And what are sausages made of? Pork!

It's probably important to say that the depiction of minority groups in British dramas has never been as ghastly as in US films in the past, as reflects our different society. We can't go into this in detail, but Jewish people have been well represented from the start. "Never Mind the Quality, Feel the Width" is an excellent British television sitcom, first broadcast in 1967 for a few series and reprised in 1973. The focus was on two tailors in business together. Manny Cohen, played by John Bluthal, was Jewish, and Patrick Kelly, played by Joe Lynch, was Irish Catholic. And of course they were great friends, and we see the wider communities of both, and beyond.

But that not to say that prejudice does not exist, just that it's misleading to solely quote US attitudes.

After today's chapter I do give examples of the influence Charles Dickens was having on his readers in the States.

Chapter 10:

After spending many days picking embroidery and playing the strange game, Oliver is finally allowed out with Charley Bates and the Artful Dodger. He wonders what he will learn to make first—handkerchiefs or pocketbooks. Instead he is startled to see Charley swiping fruit and vegetables from market stalls. Then Jack spots a well-dressed gentleman at a bookstall and reaches into the man’s pocket, takes out a handkerchief, and passes it to Charley. The two run off.



"Oliver amazed at the Dodger's mode of going to work" - George Cruikshank 1837



"Oliver's Eyes are opened" - Harry Furniss 1910

Suddenly realising with horror where all the handkerchiefs and pocketbooks really come from, Oliver begins to run. Soon a crowd is pursuing Oliver, joined opportunistically by Charley Bates and the Artful Dodger yelling, “Stop, thief!”



"Stop thief!" - James Mahoney 1871

A brutish fellow stops Oliver with a fist to the face. The gentleman arrives and identifies Oliver as the thief but shows concern for his injuries. With the gentleman in attendance, a policeman leads Oliver away.

Oh my goodness, what will happen to Oliver now? He has lost his protector the pleasant old gentleman who called him “My Dear” (Did you notice how often Fagin said that? This phrase is one of Charles Dickens’s early signature phrases, which we have often come across later in other other novels. The most memorable for me is the stranger in Bleak House, who as he laughs, ”his moustache went up under his nose, and his nose came down over his moustache” (view spoiler)[ Rigaud (hide spoiler)] . This verbal recognition key helped Charles Dickens’s original readers to remember who someone was, as they waited for later installments.

Oliver is realising what the “work” is, that the boys are expected to do, quite literally as we have learned today, for their supper. When at last he was allowed out to learn the business, it seemed to puzzle Oliver that they could wander around for so long, and yet still have time to make the pocketbooks and handkerchiefs. Plus Charley Bates had “some very loose notions concerning the rights of property.” Oliver is still very naive about adults, despite ill-treatment by Bumble, the parish beadle, and the overfed master of the workhouse. Even the beating at the Sowerberry’s has not affected his hope that adults will be good. So when he witnesses Jack Dawkin and Charley Bates pick the pocket of a gentleman as he browses through books at a stall in Clerkenwell Green, we can only imagine the inner turmoil Oliver must now be in.

Clerkenwell Green is in South-West Islington, in what is now central London. It has a very mixed history, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clerken... but at the time of Oliver Twist there was a busy market held there, so it was easy for pickpockets to not be notice among the shoppers. Charles Dickens describes it as: “an open square in Clerkenwell, which is yet called, by some perversion of terms the Green”, despite lacking any “greenery”. In fact Charles Dickens knew this area well, and was a customer of the Finsbury Savings Bank on Sekforde Street, which links Clerkenwell Green to St John Street.

I found it so poignant that the victim of the theft would plead “don’t hurt him” to the crowd. It seems like genuine compassion, at last, after the den of thieves he was in before. And he is presented as a truly respectable, middle-class gentleman. Perhaps there is a glimmer of hope for Oliver … but now he is in the hands of the law.

Victorian Crime

In Victorian London child criminality was common, and there was much talk of criminal bosses who trained and ran gangs of young thieves and then fenced the goods the boys stole. In the early 19th century these included the thief-trainer Thomas Duggin; Charles King, who, like Fagin, headed a gang of pickpockets; and Ikey Solomon, the notorious thief-trainer and fence. Like Oliver the boys were usually orphans and runaways in need of a livelihood, and of course, the criminal bosses were eager to improve their incomes by taking advantage of these young boys. Dickens, in his usual manner, felt the need to draw the public’s attention to this human tragedy involving the young and vulnerable children of London.

Did you notice how in an earlier chapter Charles Dickens pointed out the differences between the dungeons reserved for petty thieves, and the palaces reserved for hardened felons? This is a recurring theme throughout his works, mainly centering on the horrible treatment of unfortunate debtors (such as his own father) and what he saw as the not so harsh treatment of murderers and rapists.

He says “Let anyone who doubts this, compare the two.” In other words, he claims to be describing and indicting, actual conditions, and challenges the readers to take him by his word. Obviously, this was close to his heart, and came straight from the author’s recent personal experiences with his father. I believe that most of what he described was pretty near the truth, merely “selecting highlights” of the scenario for dramatic effect, much as he would have edited the action as a reporter.

Yet some later critics, such as G.K. Chesterton called Charles Dickens a “mythologist”. Odd, since so much of his material was rooted in realism, and came out of his everyday life experiences. But perhaps here G.K. Chesterton was thinking of Charles Dickens’s larger than life characters. I know Plateresca rates G.K. Chesterton’s view highly so perhaps you can shed light on this Plateresca? I personally feel “mythologist” is too generic a term, and that Charles Dickens is multifaceted.

And a little more …

A Real Life Artful Dodger?

Our upcoming side read is called Dickens and the Workhouse: Oliver Twist and the London Poor by Ruth Richardson in which she suggests that the Cleveland Street workhouse was important for Charles Dickens’s depiction in Oliver Twist. But shortly after the book was published, a different historian discovered another synchronicity.

The historian Cameron Nunn was researching child convicts sent to Australia during the Victorian era, when he came across the account of 13-year-old thief Samuel Holmes. He discovered a report written by the magistrate William Augustus Miles at the National Archives in Kew, South-West London. Significantly, it is dated 1836—just a year before Charles Dickens’s serial began.

William Miles had interviewed Samuel Holmes (just in case, I’ll put anything relating to the end of his real life story under a spoiler!) (view spoiler)[alongside other young convicts on the prison ship HMS Euryalus, all sentenced to seven years’ transportation to Point Puer—the first juvenile jail in Tasmania, Australia. He was released aged 27 (hide spoiler)]. for a special parliamentary committee looking at juvenile crime in London. Samuel Holmes had already served four prison sentences. He told the magistate that he had trained as a pickpocket in an East London hideout which sounds almost identical to Fagin’s den, and had the nickname “Smouchee”. He had fallen into crime following the death of his mother and his father’s descent into alcoholism—a situation likely to have appealed to Charles Dickens’s sympathetic nature. Samuel Holmes told the magistrate how he had come to join a criminal gang:

“Two boys took me to a house in Stepney, kept by a Jew, and he agreed to board and lodge me for 2 shillings and sixpence a week, provided I brought and sold to him all that I might steal. He has about 13 boys in the house on the same terms.”

Samuel Holmes even described a trap door used to hide the loot, and boasted of a raid in which he stole a shopkeeper’s till containing £17. He said:

“The landlord has also the adjoining house and the back kitchen is fitted with a trap door to help escape and in one corner of one of the back kitchens is a sliding floor underneath which property is hid.”

In today’s chapter 10, we read:

“After satisfying himself upon the head, the Jew stepped gently to the door: which he fastened. He then drew forth: as it seemed to Oliver, from some trap in the floor: a small box, which he placed carefully on the table. His eyes glistened as he raised the lid, and looked in. Dragging an old chair to the table, he sat down; and took from it a magnificent gold watch sparkling with jewels.”

Samuel Holmes soon graduated to overseeing the young crooks under the watch of his master, saying:

“I was about a fortnight in training and afterwards went out to assist and screen the boys where they picked pockets.”

Samuel Holmes had been arrested for stealing a bullock’s tongue, three doves and a pigeon. And Oliver Twist made Charles Dickens a literary sensation.

So what do you think? Is this too much of a coincidence?

And yet more …

Illustrations

George Cruikshank produced the original illustration for chapter 10 here, after he and Charles Dickens jointly chose the scene

The illustration for chapter 9 by the American illustrator Felix O. C. Darley, was used as a frontispiece for the New York “Household” Edition. It shows Fagin as a secretive underworld figure as he first appears to Oliver just after the boy arrives in London accompanied by the Artful Dodger.

Although not familiar with London street crime, American readers would already have been familiar with Fagin, the Artful Dodger, and the other dubious characters in the story we have yet to meet, through numerous dramatic adaptations from 1839 onward. Theatres in Boston, Chicago, and New Orleans all had stage productions of Oliver Twist by the end of 1839, and in 1840 there were productions in St. Louis, Missouri, several in areas of New York, and New Jersey.

Felix O. C. Darley’s illustration suggested that Fagin, like Oliver, is a social misfit, an isolated figure who has had to keep a constant eye to the main chance in the East End’s streets. Both Fagin and Oliver are startled. The “respectable old gentleman” is shown to be a miser, (and worse) even admitting to this part himself. He grasps his cash-box while Oliver instinctively raises his arm in self-defence, as Fagin menaces him with a dagger momentarily. Behind them both we see the chief source of Fagin’s wealth, purloined silk handkerchiefs drying on a rack.

By contrast, for chapter 9 “The Thieves Kitchen” yesterday, Harry Furniss avoids much detail, and instead highlights the four figures in a kind of “freeze-frame” pausing the action for a spilt second. His style is very impressionistic and dynamic. It is quite theatrical, showing Oliver as an audience of one, seemingly delighted by the antics of Charley Bates and The Artful Dodger, and by Fagin’s pretending to be an upper-middle-class “swell” ripe for the picking. And we learn that “this game had been played a great many times”. Oliver is no longer the victim. He is being entertained and must think he has found a home and family at last.

Sadly, we see today that this was a short-lived delusion. Harry Furniss also illustrated the scene George Cruikshank and Charles Dickens had selected together, but chose to place Oliver, startled, in the background, and shows the two pickpockets (Dodger and Charley) in the foreground. Again, the illustration by Harry Furniss is more dramatic and dynamic. He places the gentleman with his back to the reader, whereas we can see a little more of his face with George Cruikshank’s depiction.

The Irish illustrator James Mahoney goes another way altogether, choosing to illustrate the ensuing chase by the crowd, after poor, innocent Oliver.

(Edited for Felix O. C. Darley)

Chapter 9:

Does Fagin's musing, when inspecting his, to use a term associated with a later Dickens's character, "portable property", starting with “What a fine thing capital punishment is…” imply some of the goods came into his possession because partners from his past were finally held to account for their crimes?

I found Dickens use of “ladies and “gentlemen” interesting from the passage below:

“a couple of young ladies called to see the young gentlemen…They wore a great deal of hair, not very neatly turned up behind”

Society would not consider the four young people ”ladies and gentlemen” just by the class they belong to. Notice Dickens described how Nancy and Bet wore their hair. A respectable woman would not go out in public displaying their hair without a hat or bonnet.
A young woman out in public like that might mark them out as prostitutes.

The year "Oliver Twist" started to be published Benjamin Disraeli was elected to parliament. Disraeli being a Jewish convert to Anglicanism was able to take the oath that included statements of Christian faith to become a MP. Following the example of other countries in Europe, especially France, and Catholic Emancipation of 1829, the 1830s saw the start of decades long campaigns for Jewish Emancipation.

Yes Michael, Mirabeau had addressed the question of Jewish communities in France in an essay of 1787. Abbé Grégoire had dealt with it as well. The Revolution of 1789 brought the issue of emancipation to debates at the National Assembly and the Convention.

A good article by Michel Winnock.

https://www.lhistoire.fr/la-bataille-...


Good catch about the sausages Jean! Or these were kosher sausages he had bought in Whitechapel

Thanks Michael and Claudia!

It's time now for everyone to read the comments you are interested in on chapters 9 and 10, and add your own, before we conclude this installment tomorrow. (It would be great to hear from members who I can see are following this but have not yet commented 😊)

Interesting information Jean! There is a great passage with anaphoric paragraphs "Stop thief! Stop Thief!" till "Stopped at last!". All this is written in present tense, implying immediate action, while the tale is kept at bay for a short spell of time.
It's an early novel but it announces very Dickensian future novels. (Dombey and Son)

This stylistic way of stopping the narration in order to focus on action, gesture and dynamics of crowd (here just the passers by) is sometimes to be found much later into the 20th century, for instance La Maison de Rendez-vous by Alain Robbe-Grillet, one of the prominent writers of Le Nouveau Roman (the Chinese lady walking)(1965).

But I very much prefer Dickens! He is a master of anaphora and crowd dynamics.

Jean, thank you for the interesting information about Samuel Holmes. (view spoiler)[I’d like to know what he did once he was here to be kept in prison till he was 27! (hide spoiler)]

Violence against children is so pervasive in this novel. Fagin joins the long list of adults beating children under their authority:

"On one occasion, indeed, he even went so far as to knock them both down a flight of stairs;"

Then the narrator throws in another comment filled with dark satire:

"but this was carrying out his virtuous precepts to an unusual extent"

Considering the type of environment Oliver Twist grew up in, one would think he would have encountered at least one boy who did commit acts of petty theft, But that would take away the innocence of Oliver that has played such an important part of the novel.

Such interesting info about Victorian crime, Jean. Treating the poor worse than criminals shows how strong was the idea of class, and how people below a certain level were not treated as human beings, a common problem historically and still.

I found this line striking: “There is a passion for hunting something deeply implanted in the human breast.” Personally, I like it when Dickens steps in and makes narrative points, whether ironical or straight like this.

Oliver’s ratting on the two boys, and them shouting in triumph when he was caught and not them, kind of destroys the idea of a band of brothers! At least Oliver's not part of it yet.

Kathleen - that line hit home for me too!

And yes, there may be "honour among thieves", as Fagin is trying to teach the boys, but for some reason Oliver is still an outsider. As you say, perhaps this means there is hope for him yet!

I found it interesting that the movie placard that opens this comment thread states specifically, "NOT SUITABLE FOR CHILDREN." A child lives it, but other children should not be privy to his story.

I'm sure this site will be familiar to many of you, but I just came across it and thought I would share. Jean always gives us the illustrations as we are reading, but the person who did this site took a great deal of care to make superb reproductions.

https://www.charlesdickensillustratio...

I spotted that too Anna! What irony.

Since it was 1948, do you think perhaps things might be different now? I've noticed that films with a strict censor back, ("X" rated in the UK) then, seem quite tame now, and I think when it is shown on TV this film is "U" rated (i.e. everyone). But your comment is very pertinent.

I found the irony to be heavy throughout this chapter. Poor Oliver is still an innocent in this literal den of thieves.

Jean, is there an illustration from Felix O.C. Darley from chapter 10? I see the one from Ch 9. Your message 25 describes one with Fagan and Oliver but I’m only seeing Cruikshank, Furniss and Mahoney from today’s information.

Thank you for the info on the real Artful Dodger, Jean. How very interesting! Dickens obviously used this boy as his muse and it is so interesting that his keeper was a Jew. I also think the added detail of the trap door adds a level of realism for readers who may not exactly know first hand what crime was like and how children were involved. Children would have been overlooked in a crowded market and not necessarily thought to be harmful so it was easier for them to steal and pick pockets.

You said it in one of your comments today, that poor Oliver is just so naive that he is so shocked to see this type of activity from Jack and Charley. He really wants to believe in respectability of adults and the fact that the man who accused him had pity for Oliver is a poignant moment. I couldn’t help laughing though, that when the gentleman reading the book yelled “Stop thief!” He ran off with the book and may not have paid for it!

Lori wrote: He ran off with the book...

That just now registered! How funny.

Lori wrote: "Jean, is there an illustration from Felix O.C. Darley from chapter 10? I see the one from Ch 9 ..."

Sorry Lori 🙄 I've edited the comment. It was yesterday's illustration, so we still have 3 to come (if I can keep it up - it takes so long!) I got confused with different editions ending at different points, and Harry Furniss providing one for each chapter (in fact he's done one for each of the last 5, but none for the next 3) whereas other artists just did one or the other, or none 😆 - aargh! And there are none at all by anyone for tomorrow's chapter, so I will just have to include a character study. Anyway some of my commentary comparing the two illustrations goes with yesterday's chapter, so you need to scroll a bit.

I'm glad you're looking at them though! 😊 I love the different interpretations they show. And even though George Cruikshank had Charles Dickens's ear, he was still pretty much working in the dark, as neither of them knew exactly how the story would go.

Apropos Sara's comment, which I asked her to add here too.

The site links to the original illustrations by George Cruikshank, so if you look at all the illustrations for the current read, you will have spoilers, just as we would have looking at the later cover cameo illustration by George Cruikshank which I'll include at the end. They are excellent quality though, using a 1901-1905 edition, and thus coloured by someone else.

George Cruikshank died in 1878, but as an old man he did produce some watercolours of his illustrations for Charles Dickens's novels, as I mentioned earlier. I do wonder why the publisher did not use those for the frontispieces for the 1901-1905 edition. Perhaps it was a copyright issue. Anyway, here is George Cruikshank's own coloured picture of today's illustration:



It is a new watercolour, based on his own engraving. The one included on the website Sara linked to is tinted by someone else. Here it is, for comparison:


It has been redrawn, which is why it looks more precise, and different colours are used.

Bionic Jean wrote: "Werner - ...(I'll sort out the other thread)"

Great! Thank you, Jean.

Jean, before you switched to this new thread, I received email notifications of comments. But now I don't. How can I make sure that I get email notifications of this new thread?

I noticed also, that whoever redrew the illustration in message 41 also removed Cruikshank's signature. At the very least, it should have been credited as "after Cruikshank" or something similar. Removing the attribution from a copied piece of art isn't just a phenomenon of the internet age, it seems!

Jean wrote: I found it so poignant that the victim of the theft would plead “don’t hurt him” to the crowd. It seems like genuine compassion, at last, after the den of thieves he was in before. And he is presented as a truly respectable, middle-class gentleman. Perhaps there is a glimmer of hope for Oliver … but now he is in the hands of the law. I actually thought the man just wanted his handkerchief back and as noted seemed to have a lot of compassion for Oliver. I almost thought he might take him under his wing but as you said he is in the hands of the law now. Poor Oliver, he just can't get a break!

No problem at all, Jean. I was just not wanting to miss an illustration so thought I'd check.

I love the impreciseness of Cruikshank's drawing. It has a hazy look to it and the redrawn one looks too modern. But I think the black and white of the original is my favorite.

I'm not sure what happened to my last comment, so writing again.
Kathleen wrote: I found this line striking: “There is a passion for hunting something deeply implanted in the human breast.” Personally, I like it when Dickens steps in and makes narrative points, whether ironical or straight like this.

Oliver’s ratting on the two boys, and them shouting in triumph when he was caught and not them, kind of destroys the idea of a band of brothers! At least Oliver's not part of it yet.

yet Dickens also wrote ...Oliver...was not acquainted with the beautiful axiom that self-preservation is the first law of nature.

Anna wrote: "Jean, before you switched to this new thread, I received email notifications of comments. But now I don't. How can I make sure that I get email notifications of this new thread?"

I think you will now, Anna 😊 As I understand it, you need to comment on a thread before you get automatic notifications of it. I tried to make sure everyone can find it at first, by locking the first thread temporarily and providing a link, as the GR program is a bit basic.

Beth wrote: "I noticed also, that whoever redrew the illustration in message 41 also removed Cruikshank's signature. At the very least, it should have been credited as "after Cruikshank" or something similar. R..."

I agree completely, Beth! Perhaps in the book itself George Cruikshank is credited. Children's editions sometimes use an illustrator who has worked on George Cruikshank's originals, making some lines bolder, missing out the details and using bold colours, as it looks attractive and appeals more to children. Then their name will be in big letters, and "after George Cruikshank" inserted in the title page in small print. You might have seen some of these.

I have very mixed feelings about this ... but as Lori says, I prefer the original steel plate etchings as there is so much detail. Sometimes if he was privy to a bit more information about the story, they become quite emblematic, and the background bears close study 😊 I think that George Cruikshank's watercolours have a different feel altogether, and are quite impressionistic, but the 24 I'm inserting in the summaries are all his original etchings.

Chapter 11:

At the police station, Oliver is locked in a dismal cell, and the gentleman whose things had been stolen muses on why Oliver’s face looks so familiar. Soon Oliver appears before the police magistrate, Mr. Fang:

“a lean, long-backed, stiff-necked, middle-sized man, with no great quantity of hair, and what he had, growing on the back and sides of his head. His face was stern, and much flushed”.




"Mr. Fang" - Joseph Clayton ClarkeJ. Clayton Clarke ("Kyd") c. 1900

The gentleman whose handkerchief was stolen identifies himself as Mr. Brownlow and says he cannot be sure Oliver was the thief; he expresses concern that the boy is gravely ill. Oliver is in fact so ill that he cannot answer any questions and soon passes out. Mr. Fang sentences Oliver to three months’ hard labour.

As Oliver is being carried from the room, the bookstall keeper rushes in and testifies that Oliver’s companions were the thieves and that Oliver himself “was perfectly amazed and stupefied” to see what they did. Mr. Fang changes his previous decision, and releases Oliver. When Mr. Brownlow and the bookseller leave the station, they find Oliver lying in the street, bathed in sweat and shivering. Mr. Brownlow calls for a coach, and the two men leave, taking Oliver with them.

This ends installment 5