The second book - Oliver Twist

The second book is a bit of a waste of time. If I had to pay £1, 11s and 7d for the trilogy, I would have been annoyed to pay so much for the middle volume. I understand why I never saw this in any of the film adaptions, although it does have the brilliant line:

"But tears were not the things to find their ways to Mr Bumble's soul; his heart was waterproof."

There was a chapter in which the lovely Rose looks like she was going to die. Thanfully, she survived. I liked Dicken's natural Christianity regarding thte death of young people who were dear to you. It was a common enough thing to go through in those days. Conrad and Hardy would probably have let her die and have been a bit cynical about it afterwards. Dickens allowed many of his characters to die, but not cynically - unless you can think of instances when he did.