OLIVER TWIST.
VOL. I.
NEW WORK BY “BOZ.”
———
BARNABY RUDGE:
BY “BOZ.”
Which will be published forthwith in Bentley’s Miscellany.
BY
SECOND EDITION.
IN THREE VOLUMES.
VOL. I.
LONDON:
RICHARD BENTLEY, NEW BURLINGTON STREET.
————
1839.
LONDON:
PRINTED BY SAMUEL BENTLEY,
Dorset Street, Fleet Street.
CHAPTER I.
TREATS OF THE PLACE WHERE OLIVER TWIST WASBORN, AND OF THE CIRCUMSTANCES ATTENDING HISBIRTH.
Among other public buildings in a certaintown which for many reasons it will be prudentto refrain from mentioning, and to which I willassign no fictitious name, it boasts of one whichis common to most towns, great or small, towit, a workhouse; and in this workhouse wasborn, on a day and date which I need nottake upon myself to repeat, inasmuch as itcan be of no possible consequence to thereader, in this stage of the business at allevents, the item of mortality whose name isprefixed to the head of this chapter. For a[2]long time after he was ushered into thisworld of sorrow and trouble, by the parishsurgeon, it remained a matter of considerabledoubt whether the child would survive tobear any name at all; in which case it issomewhat more than probable that thesememoirs would never have appeared, or, ifthey had, being comprised within a couple ofpages, that they would have possessed the inestimablemerit of being the most concise andfaithful specimen of biography extant in theliterature of any age or country. Although Iam not disposed to maintain that the beingborn in a workhouse is in itself the most fortunateand enviable circumstance that can possiblybefal a human being, I do mean to saythat in this particular instance it was the bestthing for Oliver Twist that could by possibilityhave occurred. The fact is, that there wasconsiderable difficulty in inducing Oliver totake upon himself the office of respiration,—atroublesome practice, but one which customhas rendered necessary to our easy existence,—andfor some time he lay gasping on a little[3]flock mattress, rather unequally poised betweenthis world and the next, the balancebeing decidedly in favour of the latter. Now,if during this brief period, Oliver had beensurrounded by careful grandmothers, anxiousaunts, experienced nurses, and doctors of profoundwisdom, he would most inevitably andindubitably have been killed in no time. Therebeing nobody by, however, but a pauper oldwoman, who