There is a variant, also without publisher's imprint, of diaper cloth, a little smaller and with straight trimmed edges. This copy is in the fine-ribbed cloth case binding, without publisher's imprint at the foot of the spine, in a larger case and with untrimmed edges.

The first issue, as here, was published on 9 November the second, with cancel titles, omitting the subtitle and giving Dickens's name as the author, and with the 'Church' plate at the end, was issued on 16 November. He also decided that he no longer wished to be styled 'Boz'. Dickens disliked the final 'Fireside' plate and asked Cruikshank for a new design, the 'Church' plate.

Bentley rushed Oliver Twist out in book form before serialization was complete, forcing Cruikshank to hurry the last few plates. The pathos of little Oliver (the first of many such child figures in Dickens), the farcical comedy of the Bumbles, the sinister fascination of Fagin, the horror of Nancy's murder, and the powerful evocation of London's dark and labyrinthine criminal underworld, all helped to drive Dickens's popularity to new heights' (ODNB). Once the scene shifted to London, however, Oliver Twist developed into a unique and compelling blend of a 'realistic' tale about thieves and prostitutes and a melodrama with strong metaphysical overtones. 'Oliver Twist was originally conceived as a satire on the new poor law of 1834 which herded the destitute and the helpless into harshly run union workhouses, and which was perceived by Dickens as a monstrously unjust and inhumane piece of legislation (he was still fiercely attacking it in Our Mutual Friend in 1865). The novel remains one of the best-known of all works of English fiction. Oliver Twist was first published serially between February 1837 and April 1839 in Bentley's Miscellany, and in the present three-volume book by Richard Bentley in 1838 (six months before the initial serialization was complete). First edition in book form, first issue, with Boz title pages and the 'Fireside' plate, a nice copy in the original cloth.

Oliver twist