Oliver Twist (Penguin Books)

Part of "Penguin's" beautiful hardback "Clothbound Classics" series, designed aby the award-winning Coralie Bickford-Smith, these delectable and collectible editions are bound in high-quality colourful, tactile cloth with foil stamped into the design. The story of the orphan Oliver, who runs away from the workhouse only to be taken in żeby a den of thieves, shocked readers when it was first published. Dickens' tale of childhood innocence beset aby evil depicts the dark criminal underworld of a London peopled aby vivid and memorable characters - the arch-villain Fagin, the artful Dodger, the menacing Bill Sikes and the prostitute Nancy. Combining elements of Gothic Romance, the Newgate Novel and popular melodrama, Dickens created an entirely newkind of fiction, scathing in its indictment of a cruel society, and pervaded by an unforgettable sense of threat and mystery.