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
Mine Boy (novel) Mine Boy (novel) Mine Boy is a 1946 novel by South African novelist Peter Abrahams. Set in South Africa, the novel explores the stereotypes and institutions that discriminate against working-class black Africans. According to Nigerian scholar Kolawole Ogungbesan, "Mine Boy" became "the first African novel written in English to attract international attention." The plot follows a black miner, Xuma, as he goes through a number of struggles, including introduced disease from Europeans as well as political and social trauma. Xuma moves from his town to Malay camp, a black area of Johannesburg, in search of work at the gold mines.