OLIVER TWIST & ME

A fascinating family and social history and a savage indictment of the role of child slavery in the growth of the Industrial Revolution Catherine Taylor author of The Stirrings A Memoir in Northern Time We all think we know the tale As a child Charles Dickens was forced to work in a mouldering Thames side blacking factory an event that scarred him for life and inspired Oliver Twist Except that s only part of the story In reality Dickens appropriated the stories of foundlings and orphans including Robert Blincoe whose memoir supplied the source material for his great novel of childhood In Oliver Twist & Me novelist Nicholas Blincoe presents a dual biography of Dickens and his great great great grandfather Robert showing how the story of an orphan took off in different directions helping Dickens project himself as an inimitable literary one off just as Robert s memoir of a workhouse boy gave a voice to the masses From London and Kent to the factories of Manchester Blincoe retraces the steps of both men along the way discovering the Camden workhouse that inspired Dickens and revisiting the great stage musical His journeys with his family and his dog Fredo lead him to an affectionate reassessment of a beloved classic while also revealing how Dicken