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
Alfred Lamert Dickens farmhouse nearby for them to live in while he found them a home in London. Charles hired Alfred's widow, Helen, to care for and mind his mother, Elizabeth Dickens (died 1863), for the remainder of his mother's life. Alfred Lamert Dickens Alfred Lamert Dickens (1822–1860) was an English railway engineer, and was the younger brother of the Victorian novelist Charles Dickens. As a boy Alfred, nicknamed Enrique by friends, attended a school in Hampstead with his brother Frederick Dickens for two years, until his father John Dickens could no longer afford the fees. At the end of the school day