Orphan of the Mist

Author: Charles Dickens (Original); Qi Chi (Rewritten)
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2001-01-01
Features: The author is one of the most famous realist writers of 19th-century Britain, having written over ten long novels in his lifetime. At the age of only twenty-five, he wrote Oliver Twist. This novel has been adapted into various films and television productions, screened and broadcast widely, leaving a profound and far-reaching impact. The protagonist was originally an illegitimate child of a wealthy family from the upper class. His young mother, long deprived of love and care, endured hardships and suffering alone after giving birth to him and passed away shortly after. From the moment he entered the world, he never experienced maternal love or the warmth of a family. Instead, he lived a hellish and miserable life in the so-called charitable institutions of the time, the poorhouses. At the age of nine, he was sent to work as an apprentice in a coffin shop. The novel reflects the struggle between good and evil, beauty and ugliness, justice and injustice, praising the inherent integrity and kindness in human nature. It also exposes and criticizes the hypocrisy of some charitable institutions and the arbitrary rule of the police at the time.