English Literature books summary

Nancy and Sikes take Oliver to a dilapidated house in a squalid

neighborhood. Fagin, the Dodger, and Charley laugh hysterically at his

clothing.

He tries to escape, calling for help. Sikes threatens to set his

vicious dog, Bulls-Eye, on him. Nancy leaps to Oliver's defense, saying

that they have ruined all his good prospects. She has worked for Fagin

since she was a small child, and she knows that cold, dank streets and a

life of bad repute lay in wait for Oliver. Fagin tries to beat Oliver for

his escape attempt, and Nancy fles at Fagin in a rage. Sikes catches her by

the wrists, and she faints. They strip Oliver of his clothing, Brownlow's

money, and the books. Fagin returns his old clothing to him and sends him

to bed. Oliver had given the clothing to Mrs. Bedwin to sell to a Jew; the

Jew then delivered the clothing to Fagin, thus giving him his first clue to

Oliver's whereabouts.

Chapters 16-22

Summary

Mr. Brownlow publishes an advertisement offering a reward of five

guineas for information about Oliver's whereabouts or his past. Mr. Bumble

notices it in the paper while traveling to London. He quickly goes to

Brownlow's home. Mr. Bumble states that, since birth, Oliver had displayed

nothing but "treachery, ingratitude, and malice." Brownlow decides Oliver

is nothing but an impostor, but Mrs. Bedwin refuses to believe it.

Fagin leaves Oliver locked up in the house for days. From morning

until midnight, Oliver has no human company. Dodger and Charley ask him why

he does not just give himself over to Fagin since the money comes quickly

and easily. Fagin gradually allows Oliver to spend more time in the other

boys' company. Sometimes, Fagin himself regales his crew with funny stories

of robberies he committed in his youth. Oliver often laughs at the stories

despite himself. Fagin's plan has been to isolate Oliver until he comes to

desire any human contact, even Fagin's. He begins to win Oliver over to his

lifestyle.

Sikes plans to rob a house, but he needs a small boy for the job.

Fagin offers Oliver for the work. Sikes warns that he will kill Oliver if

he betrays any signs of hesitation during the robbery. Fagin assures him

that he has won Oliver over in spirit, but he wants Oliver to take part in

a serious crime in order to firmly seal the boy in his power. Sikes

arranges to have Nancy deliver Oliver to the scene. Fagin watches Nancy for

any signs of hesitation.

She once railed against trapping Oliver into a life of crime, but she

seems to betray no further misgivings about doing her part to include

Oliver in the robbery.

Fagin informs Oliver that he will be taken to Sikes' residence that

night. He gives Oliver a book to read. Oliver waits, shivering in horror at

the book's bloody tales of famous criminals and murderers. Nancy arrives to

take him away. Oliver considers calling for help on the streets. Reading

his thoughts on his face, Nancy warns him that he could get both of them

into deep trouble. They arrive at Sikes' residence, and Sikes shows Oliver

a pistol. He warns Oliver that if he causes any trouble, he will kill him.

At five in the morning, they prepare to leave for the job.

Sikes takes Oliver on a long journey to the town of Shepperton. They

arrive after dark. Sikes leads him to a decayed, ruinous house where his

partners-in- crime, Toby Crackit and Barney, are waiting. At half past one,

Sikes and Crackit set out with Oliver. They arrive at the targeted house

and climb over the wall surrounding it. Oliver begs Sikes to let him go.

Sikes curses and prepares to shoot him, but Crackit knocks the pistol away,

saying that gunfire will draw attention.

Crackit clasps his hand over Oliver's mouth while Sikes pries open a

tiny window. Sikes instructs Oliver to take a lantern and open the street

door to let them inside, reminding him that he is within shooting range all

the while. Oliver plans to dash for the stairs and warn the family. Sikes

lowers him through the window. However, the residents of the house awake

and one shoots Oliver. Sikes pulls him back through the window. He and

Crackit flee with Oliver.

Chapters 23-28

At the workhouse, Mr. Bumble visits Mrs. Corney, the matron of the

establishment, to deliver some wine for the infirmary. She invites him tea.

They flirt while he slowly moves his chair closer to hers, and he plants a

kiss on her lips. An old pauper woman interrupts them to report that Old

Sally is close to death. She wishes to tell Mrs. Corney something before

she dies.

Irritated at the interruption, Mrs. Corney leaves Bumble alone in her

room. Mrs. Corney enters Old Sally's room. The dying woman awakes and asks

that her two elderly bedside companions be sent away. Once alone, she

confesses that she once robbed a woman in her care. The woman had been

found on the road close to childbirth. She had a gold locket that she gave

to Old Sally for safe keeping. She said that if her child lived, the locket

might lead to some people who would care for it. The child's name was

Oliver.

Sally shudders and dies, and Mrs. Corney steps out of the room. She

tells the nurses who attended Sally that she had nothing to say, after all.

Crackit arrives at Fagin's. Fagin has learned from the newspapers that the

robbery has failed. Crackit informs Fagin that Oliver was shot during the

attempted break-in. He reports that the entire population in the area

surrounding the targeted house then chased after them. He and Sikes fled,

leaving Oliver lying in a ditch.

Fagin rushes out to a bar to look for a man named Monks. Not finding

him, he hurries to Sikes' residence, where Nancy is in a drunken stupor.

She says that Sikes is hiding. He relates the news of Oliver's misfortune,

and Nancy cries that she wishes that Oliver is dead because living in

Fagin's style is worse. Fagin replies that Oliver is worth hundreds of

pounds to him. He returns to his house to find Monks waiting for him. Monks

asks why he sent Oliver out on such a mission rather than making the boy

into a simple pickpocket. Fagin replies that Oliver was not easily enticed

into the profession, so he needed a crime with which to frighten him.

Apparently Monks had been searching for Oliver when he spotted him on

Oliver's fateful first day out with the Artful Dodger and Charley.

Mrs. Corney returns to her room in a ustered state, and she and Mr.

Bumble drink spiked peppermint together. They flirt and kiss. Bumble

mentions that Mr. Slout, the master of the workhouse, is on his deathbed.

He hints that he could fill the vacancy and marry her. She blushes and

consents to his proposal. Bumble travels to inform Sowerberry that his

services will be needed for Old Sally. He happens upon Charlotte feeding

Noah Claypole oysters in the kitchen. When Noah tells Charlotte he wants to

kiss her, Bumble thunders in to preach against their immoral ways.

The night after the failed robbery, Oliver awakes in a delirium. He

happens upon the very same house Sikes tried to rob. Inside, Mr. Giles and

Mr. Brittles, two of the servants, regale the other servants with the

details of the night's events. They present themselves as intrepid heroes

although they had been terrified. Oliver's feeble knock at the door

frightens everyone. They gather around in breathless fear as Brittles opens

the door to find Oliver lying there. They exclaim that Oliver is one of the

thieves and drag him inside. The niece of the wealthy mistress of the

mansion calls downstairs to ask if the poor creature is badly wounded. She

sends Brittles to fetch a doctor and constable while Giles gently carries

Oliver upstairs.

Chapters 29-32

Mrs. Maylie, the mistress of the house at which Oliver had been shot,

is a kindly old-fashioned elderly woman. Her niece, Miss Rose, is an

angelic beauty of seventeen years of age. Mr. Losberne, the eccentric

bachelor surgeon, arrives in a uster, stating his wonderment at the fact

that neither woman is dead of fright at having a burglar in their house. He

attends to Oliver for a long while before asking the women if they have

actually seen the thief. Giles has enjoyed the commendations for his

bravery, so he does not want to tell them that the one he shot is such a

small boy. The ladies accompany the surgeon to see the culprit for the

first time.

Upon seeing Oliver, Miss Rose exclaims that he cannot possibly be a

burglar unless he was forced into the trade by older, evil men. She begs

her aunt not to send the child to prison. Mrs. Maylie replies that she

intends no such thing. They wait all day for Oliver to awake in order to

determine whether he is a "bad one" or not. Oliver relates his life history

to them that evening, bringing tears to the eyes of his audience. Mr.

Losberne hurries downstairs and asks if Giles and Brittles can swear before

the constable that Oliver is the same boy they saw in the house the night

before. Meanwhile, the Bow Street Officers, summoned by Brittles that

morning, arrive to assess the situation.

Du_ and Blathers, the Officers, examine the crime scene while the

surgeon and the women try to think of a way to conceal Oliver's part in the

crime. The Officers determine that two men and a boy were involved judging

from the footprints and the size of the window. Mr. Losberne tells them

that Giles merely mistook Oliver for the guilty party. He tells them that

Oliver was wounded accidentally by a spring-gun while trespassing on a

neighbor's property. Giles and Brittles state that they cannot swear that

he is the boy they saw that night. The Officers depart and the matter is

settled without incident.

Over a period of weeks, Oliver slowly begins to recover. He begs for some

way to repay his benefactors kindness. They tell him he can do so after he

recovers his health. He laments not being able to tell Brownlow and Mrs.

Bedwin what has happened to him. Mr. Losberne takes Oliver to London to see

them. To Oliver's bitter disappointment, he and Losberne discover that

Brownlow, Mrs. Bedwin, and Mr. Grimwig have moved to the West Indies. Mrs.

Maylie and Miss Rose take him to the country where his health improves

vastly, as do his reading and writing. He and the ladies become greatly

attached to each other over the three months they spend there.

Chapters 33-37

Without warning, Miss Rose falls ill with a serious fever. Mrs. Maylie

sends Oliver to take a letter requesting Losberne's assistance to an inn

where it can be dispatched immediately. Oliver runs the whole four miles to

the inn. On his return journey, he stumbles against a tall man wrapped in a

cloak. The man curses Oliver, asks what he is doing there, and then falls

violently to the ground, "writhing and foaming." Oliver secures help for

man before he returns home and forgets the incident entirely. Miss Rose

worsens rapidly.

Losberne arrives and examines her. He states there is little hope for her

recovery. However, Miss Rose draws back from the brink of death. Giles and

Harry Maylie, Mrs. Maylie's son, arrive to see Miss Rose. Harry is angry

that his mother has not written him sooner. Mrs. Maylie replies that Miss

Rose needs long-lasting love, not the whims of a youthful suitor.

She states that an ambitious man can marry a woman "on whose name

there is a stain" fully believing he loves her, but that when the "cold and

sordid people" approach his family, he may regret his decision and thus

cause his wife pain. Harry declares that his love for Miss Rose is solid

and lasting. While Rose recovers, Oliver and Harry collect flowers for her

room. One day Oliver falls asleep reading by a window. He has a nightmare

that Fagin and a man are pointing at him and whispering. Fagin says, "It is

he, sure enough!" Oliver awakes to see Fagin and the man from the inn-yard

peering through the window at him. They disappear rapidly as Oliver calls

for help.

Harry and Giles rush to Oliver's aid. Upon hearing about Fagin and the

man, they search the fields around the house, but they find no trace of

them. They circulate a description of Fagin around the surrounding

neighborhoods, but find no clues to his whereabouts. Harry declares his

love to Rose. Although she returns his love, she says she cannot marry him

owing to the circumstances of her birth. His station is much higher than

hers, and she does not want to weight down his ambitions. Harry states that

he will return to press his suit once more, but that, if she holds to her

resolution, he will not mention it again.

Before he and Losberne depart, Harry asks that Oliver secretly write

him a letter every two weeks. He asks that Oliver tell him everything he

and the ladies do and say to one another. Crying with grief and sorrow,

Rose watches the coach with Harry and Losberne inside until it is out of

sight.

Mr. Bumble has married Mrs. Corney and become the master of the

workhouse. He regrets giving up his position as beadle, and he regrets

giving up his situation as a single man even more. After a morning of

humiliating bickering with his wife, he stops in a bar for a drink. A man

in a dark cape is sitting there, and he recognizes Mr. Bumble as the former

beadle. He bribes Mr. Bumble for information leading to Old Sally, the

woman who nursed Oliver's mother the night she gave birth. Mr. Bumble

informs him that Old Sally is dead, but he mentions that he knows a woman

who attended the old woman's deathbed ramblings. The man asks that Mr.

Bumble bring this woman to see him at his address the following evening. He

gives his name as Monks.

Chapters 38-41

One night, during a storm, Mr. Bumble and his wife travel to a sordid

section of town near a swollen river to meet Mr. Monks in a much decayed

building.

While Mr. Bumble shivers in fear, Mrs. Bumble coolly bargains with

Monks for the price of her information . They settle on a price of twenty-

five gold pounds. Mrs. Bumble relates the information of Old Sally's

robbery of Oliver's mother. Mrs. Bumble had discovered a ragged, dirty

pawnbroker's receipt in Sally's clutching, dead hands, and had redeemed the

receipt for the gold locket. She hands the locket to Monks. Inside, he

finds a wedding ring and two locks of hair. The name "Agnes" is engraved on

the ring along with a blank for the surname. A date that is less than a

year before Oliver's birth follows it. Monks ties the locket to a lead

weight and drops it into the swirling river.

Bill Sikes is ill with a terrible fever. Nancy nurses him anxiously

despite his abuse and surly attitude. Fagin and his crew drop in to deliver

some wine and food. Sikes demands that Fagin give him some money. Nancy and

Fagin travel to Fagin's haunt where Fagin is about to delve into his store

of cash when Monks arrives and asks to speak to Fagin alone. Fagin takes

his visitor to a secluded room, but Nancy follows them and eavesdrops.

After Monks departs, Fagin gives Nancy the money. Nancy, perturbed by

what she has heard, dashes into the streets in the opposite direction of

Sikes' residence. Thinking better of it, she returns to deliver the money

to Sikes.

Sikes does not notice her changed, nervous attitude until a few days

pass. Sensing something in the air, he demands that Nancy sit with him.

After he sinks into sleep, Nancy hastens to a hotel in a wealthy section of

town. She begs the servants to allow her to speak to Miss Maylie, who is

staying there.

They conduct her upstairs. Nancy confesses that she was the one who

kidnapped Oliver on his errand for Mr. Brownlow. She relates that she

overheard Monks tell Fagin that he is Oliver's older brother. Monks wants

Oliver's identity to remain unknown forever so that he has unchallenged

claim to his share of their inheritance. He would kill Oliver if he could

do so without endangering himself. He has also promised to pay a sum to

Fagin should Oliver ever be recovered. Miss Rose begs Nancy to accept her

help in leaving her life of crime behind. Nancy replies that she cannot

because she is drawn back to Sikes despite his abusive ways. She refuses to

accept any money. Before leaving, Nancy informs Miss Rose that she can be

found on London Bridge between eleven and twelve every Sunday night in case

Miss Rose should need her testimony again.

Oliver rushes in to tell Miss Rose that he saw Mr. Brownlow going into

a house. He and Mr. Giles have ascertained that Brownlow lives there, so

Miss Rose immediately takes Oliver to see his old benefactor. She meets Mr.

Brownlow in his parlor while Mr. Grimwig is visiting. Miss Rose tells him

that Oliver has wanted to see him and thank him for his kind help two years

past. Once they are alone, she relates Nancy's strange story.

Oliver is brought in to see Brownlow and Mrs. Bedwin. After their happy

reunion, Brownlow and Miss Rose relay Nancy's information to Mrs. Maylie

and Losberne. Brownlow asks if he can include Grimwig in the matter.

Losberne agrees on the condition that they include Harry. They agree to

keep everything a secret from Oliver and decide to contact Nancy the

following Sunday on London Bridge.

Chapters 42-48

Noah Claypole and Charlotte flee to London after robbing Mr.

Sowerberry. They take a room in an inn, where they meet Fagin and Barney.

Fagin invites Noah to join in the thieving trade. He gives him the

assignment of robbing children who are running errands for their mothers.

After meeting Fagin at his home, Noah learns that Fagin's best pick-pocket,

the Artful Dodger, has been arrested for stealing a handkerchief. Noah's

first job is to go to the police station to watch the Dodger's appearance

before the magistrate. The Dodger, joking and bantering all the while, is

convicted of the crime. Noah hurries back to tell Fagin the news.

Fagin and Sikes are talking when Nancy tries to leave at eleven on

Sunday to go to London Bridge. Out of pure obstinacy, Sikes refuses to let

her go. He drags her into another room and restrains her struggles for an

hour. When he departs, Fagin asks that Nancy light his way downstairs with

a candle. He whispers to her that he will help her leave the brute Sikes if

she wants.

Fagin imagines that Nancy had wanted to meet a new lover that night.

He hopes to bring her new love into the fold with her help, but he also

hopes to persuade Nancy to poison Sikes to death. In such a way, he can re-

establish his control over her and bring her back into the business. He

plans to watch her in order to discover the identity of her new love

because he hopes to blackmail Nancy into re-joining his crew with this

information.

Fagin tells Noah he will pay him a pound to follow Nancy around and find

out where she goes and to whom she speaks. He waits until the following

Sunday to take Noah to Sikes' residence. At eleven, Nancy leaves the room

she shares with Sikes because he is out on a job that night. Noah follows

her down the street at a discreet distance.

Nancy meets Mr. Brownlow and Miss Rose and draws them into a dark,

secluded spot. Noah listens to Nancy beg them to ensure that none of her

associates get into trouble because of her choice to help Oliver. They

agree, and Nancy tells them when they will most likely see Monks visiting

Fagin.

They hope to catch Monks and force the truth of Oliver's history from

him. Nancy's description of Monks startles them. Miss Rose realizes that

Monks is the same man who, with Fagin, had startled Oliver awake by

watching him through the window at the country cottage. Brownlow begs Nancy

to accept their help, but she refuses, saying that she is chained to her

life. They leave Nancy alone and speed away. After Nancy makes her way

home, Noah runs as fast as he can to Fagin's house.

When Sikes delivers some stolen goods to Fagin that night, Fagin and

Noah relate the details of Nancy's trip to London bridge. In a rage, Sikes

rushes home and beats Nancy to death while she begs for mercy. In the

morning, he flees London, thinking that everyone looks at him suspiciously.

He stops at an inn to eat and drink. Seeing a blood-stain on Sikes's hat,

but not recognizing it for what it is, a salesman grabs it to demonstrate

the quality of his stain-remover. Sikes grabs it and flees the inn. He

overhears some men talking about a murdered woman in London at the post-

office. He wanders the road, hallucinating that Nancy's ghost is following

him. Sikes finally decides to return to London and hide. However, he knows

that his dog, Bulls-Eye, will give him away because everyone knows it

follows him everywhere. He tries to drown the animal, but it escapes.

Chapters 49-53

Meanwhile, Mr. Brownlow has captured Monks, whose real name is Edward

Leeford. Brownlow was a good friend of his father, Mr. Leeford, who was a

young man when his family forced him to marry a woman ten years older than

he. The couple eventually separated, and Monks and his mother went to

Paris. Leeford fell in love with a military man's daughter who became

pregnant with Oliver. The relative who had benefited most from Leeford's

forced marriage repented and left him a fortune. Leeford left a portrait of

his beloved in Brownlow's care while he went to take possession of his

inheritance.

His wife, hearing of his good fortune, travelled with Monks to meet

him there. However, Leeford took ill and died without a will, so his

newfound fortune fell to his wife and son. Brownlow reports that he knows

that Monks's mother Leeford had no will because his wife had actually

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