Oliver Twist Resources

This production came out in 2005.

This one has a great cast, including Keira Knightley as Rose, and Andy Serkis as Bill Sikes.

Oliver Twist was adapted as a musical in 1968. This is the most famous film version of the musical – it won 5 Oscars.

Here’s a discussion of how Neil Bartlett adapted Oliver Twist for the stage.

Purchase and download the Audiobook from Random House Audio

Mayhew was a buddy of Dickens. He was also a journalist and kind of an amateur sociologist – he visited all the dodgy parts of London and interviewed real criminals, prostitutes, and various other seedy characters from the London underworld. This book is a collection of a lot of his articles from just around the period of Oliver Twist.

This book shows how the novel itself can be seen as a mechanism for a kind of social control. Miller talks a lot about Oliver Twist and some of the issues of confinement and power that are discussed elsewhere in this module.

This is a good and readable history of the Newgate novel, and should provide some useful context if you’re interested in crime fiction.

This is a history book that focuses more on the eighteenth century than the nineteenth, but it’s easy to read and gives some great background info on crime and punishment during the period.

Britannica online has a good entry on Newgate novels, as well, but you’ll need to log in from your school or library in order to access it.