SOURCE: Golden, Catherine J. “Cruikshank's Illustrative Wrinkle in Oliver Twist's Misrepresentations of Class.” In Book Illustrated: Text, Image, Culture, 1770-1930, edited by Catherine J. Golden, pp. 117-46. New Castle, Del.: Oak Knoll, 2000.

In the following essay, Golden finds that Cruikshank's illustrations for Oliver Twist sometimes frustrated Dickens's attempts to draw a sympathetic portrait of the lower classes, while at other times they revealed Dickens's own lingering hostility toward them. Focusing mainly on the characters of Nancy and Fagin, Golden demonstrates how Cruikshank's differing attitudes toward class, as reflected in his illustrations, sometimes modified Dickens's own vision for the work.

The multiplot novels of Charles Dickens unfolded through and with illustrations integral to plot, characterization, and setting. A vital part of the reading experience even of sophisticated Victorians, illustrations of serial novels were studied, as author-illustrator George Du Maurier has put it, “with passionate interest before reading the...