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
Blue Boy (novel) Blue Boy (novel) Blue Boy () is a 1932 novel by the French writer Jean Giono. It tells the story of a family in Provence, with an ironer mother and a shoemaker father. The book is largely autobiographical and based on Giono's childhood, although it has many fictional anecdotes. An English translation by Katherine A. Clarke was published in 1946. The novel was the basis for Marcel Pagnol's 1938 film "The Baker's Wife". The film stars Raimu, Ginette Leclerc and Charles Blavette. Pagnol's film was in turn adapted into the American musical "The Baker's Wife", which premiered in 1976. It