Oliver Twist The alternative title, "The Parish Boy's Progress", alludes to Bunyan's "The Pilgrim's Progress", as well as the 18th-century caricature series by William Hogarth, "A Rake's Progress" and "A Harlot's Progress". In this early example of the social novel, Dickens satirises the hypocrisies of his time, including child labour, the recruitment of children as criminals, and the presence of street children. The novel may have been inspired by the story of Robert Blincoe, an orphan whose account of working as a child labourer in a cotton mill was widely read in the 1830s. It is likely that Dickens's own youthful experiences
You're a Big Boy Now (novel) You're a Big Boy Now (novel) You're a Big Boy Now is a 1963 satirical novel by the British author David Benedictus. It was adapted into a 1966 film directed by Francis Ford Coppola, with the setting changed from London to New York City. Benedictus dedicated the book to "the only girl I've ever loved—wherever they may be"; in a preface, the author describes the novel as an examination of "the deadliest form of self-destruction, which is love". The central character of the novel is Bernard Chanticleer, a shoe salesman at a London department store at which his father is