Oliver Twist: 13/24, Oliver Twist at Mrs Maylie's door

'Oliver had knocked faintly at the door and his whole strength failing him sunk down against one of the pillars of the little portico...the
dogs had tails well pinched to make them bark savagely...the group, peeping timorously over each other’s shoulders, held no more formidable object than poor little Oliver Twist, speechless and exhausted, who raised his heavy eyes, and mutely solicited their compassion. ‘A boy!’, exclaimed Mr Giles, valiantly pushing the tinker into the background. ‘What’s the matter with the-eh?-Why-Brittles-look here-don’t you know?’

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.