Dickens and the workhouse : Oliver Twist and the London poor / Ruth Richardson.

The story of the recently discovered London workhouse that Charles Dickens lived almost next door to in the years before he wrote 'Oliver Twist, ' told by the historian who did the sleuthing behind these new findings.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Introduction : Oliver Twist and the workhouse -- Discovery : threat, puzzle, silences -- Vicinity : environs of gentility, environs of poverty -- Institutions : hospital and workhouse -- Home : house, landlord, shop, inside, upstairs, downstairs -- Street : looking down and around -- Calamity : Sheerness, Chatham, Camden Town, Marshalsea, Somers Town -- Young Dickens : return to Norfolk Street, young professional, first essays -- Workhouse : St Paul's Parish, farming the infant poor, Paul Pry, Parliament -- Works : contemporaries, sketches, Spectres, Oliver Twist, Names, Echoes -- The most famous workhouse in the world : truth and fiction.