Oliver Twist & Me: The True Story of Charles Dickens's best-loved

**SHORTLISTED FOR THE JAMES TAIT BLACK BIOGRAPHY PRIZE** "Idiosyncratic and entertaining," Sunday Times "A fascinating family and social history," Catherine Taylor, author of The Stirrings: A Memoir in Northern Time "A fascinating dual story," Edel Coffey, The Gloss We all think we know the tale. As a child, Charles Dickens was forced to work in a mouldering Thames-side blacking factory, an event that scarred him for life and inspired Oliver Twist . Except that's only part of the story. In reality, Dickens appropriated the stories of foundlings and orphans - including Robert Blincoe, whose memoir supplied the source material for his great novel of childhood. In Oliver Twist & Me , novelist Nicholas Blincoe presents a dual biography of Dickens and his great-great-great-grandfather Robert, showing how the story of an orphan took off in different directions, helping Dickens project himself as an inimitable literary one-off, just as Robert's memoir of a workhouse boy gave a voice to the masses. By playing off the lives of a working-class hero and a classic author, Oliver Twist & Me reveals Dickens - and his world - as they have never been seen before.