![]() His life story was serialised in the Lion, a radical newspaper, in 1828 and republished in book form as The Memoirs of Robert Blincoe in 1832. Robert Blincoe, my great-great-great-grandfather, was a workhouse orphan and illegitimate. The idea that Charles Dickens based Twist on a Blincoe is expounded by John Waller in The Real Oliver Twist, a compelling history of the lives of workhouse children in the industrial revolution. And yet this, apparently, is a picture of my great-great-great-grandfather. Alongside these, Oliver is nothing but a package of tears and pieties, a blank spot of goodness. Behind him stands the Artful Dodger, the most lively character the prostitute Nancy, the most sympathetic and Bill Sikes, the most chilling. In the book and the films - David Lean's 1948 classic, Carol Reed and Lionel Bart's musical, or the latest version from Roman Polanski - the dominant figure is always Fagin. But Oliver Twist? He's not even my favourite character in Oliver Twist. Long John Silver would do nicely, or d'Artagnan, or perhaps Spider-Man. I f I could trace my roots back to a favourite character from a book I read in childhood, there are a few I'd like it to be. ![]()
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