Charles Dickens

Oliver Twist (Annotated) Charles Dickens

Differentiated book- It has a historical context with research of the time-When Oliver Twist began in the form of stories in the monthly Bentley's Miscellani magazine in 1837, his title was The Parish Boy's Progress. In the first episodes, Dickens intended to describe to his readers what it was like to be a "parish boy" (boy from a parish) during the years after the passage of the Poor Law Act of 1834. Dickens saw the bill being hotly debated when he was a parliamentary reporter for the Morning Chronicle, and continued to attack it in his fiction and journalism for the rest of his life. Before 1834, poor workers were compensated by the parish with a small sum or "unemployment" to save them from the hunger that would happen with their fixed wages as farmers. These emergency funds were made with the intention of helping people until they could stand alone. The sick and the unemployed were also the responsibility of each parish. Meanwhile, there were many problems in the old system that the new legislation tried to redirect. A new law, designed to prevent vague people from living in the community, grouped all parishes together in what was called "poor law unions" and established "workhouses" (which became known as "Unions" (here), people without means of support were welcomed and put to work for the parish.