Oliver Twist: 24/24, Rose Maylie and Oliver

‘Within the altar of the old village church there stands a white marble tablet which bears as yet but one word: AGNES. There is no coffin in that tomb; and it may be many, many years before another name is placed above it! But if the spirits of the Dead ever come back to earth, to visit spots hallowed by the love- the love beyond the grave- of those whom they knew in life, I believe that the shade of Agnes sometimes hovers round that solemn nook. I believe it none the less because that nook is in a Church, and she was weak and erring.'

George Cruikshank supplied twenty-four engravings for the first edition of Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens between February 1837 and April 1839. It was Dickens’s second novel published by Richard Bentley. After Dickens's death in 1870, Cruikshank made the claim that it was he who had originated Oliver Twist, a claim which Dickens's biographer and confidant, John Forster, refuted by referring to Dickens's letters. The plates for that novel certainly reflect Cruikshank's extensive knowledge of the London underworld.