Chapter 5 Oliver, being left to himself in the undertaker’s shop, set the lamp down on a workman’s bench, and gazed timidly about him with a feeling of awe and dread, which many people a good deal older than he will be at no loss to understand. An unfinished coffin on black tressels, which stood […]
Chapter 4 In great families, when an advantageous place cannot be obtained, either in possession, reversion, remainder, or expectancy, for the young man who is growing up, it is a very general custom to send him to sea. The board, in imitation of so wise and salutary an example, took counsel together on the expediency
Oliver, Being Offered Another Place, Makes His First Entry Into Public Life Read More »
Chapter 3 For a week after the commission of the impious and profane offence of asking for more, Oliver remained a close prisoner in the dark and solitary room to which he had been consigned by the wisdom and mercy of the board. It appears, at first sight not unreasonable to suppose, that, if he
Chapter 2 For the next eight or ten months, Oliver was the victim of a systematic course of treachery and deception. He was brought up by hand. The hungry and destitute situation of the infant orphan was duly reported by the workhouse authorities to the parish authorities. The parish authorities inquired with dignity of the
Treats of Oliver Twist’s Growth, Education, and Board Read More »
Chapter 1 Among other public buildings in a certain town, which for many reasons it will be prudent to refrain from mentioning, and to which I will assign no fictitious name, there is one anciently common to most towns, great or small: to wit, a workhouse; and in this workhouse was born; on a day
Chapter 28 Mr Heelas, Mr Kemp’s nearest neighbour among the villa holders, was asleep in his summer house when the siege of Kemp’s house began. Mr Heelas was one of the sturdy minority who refused to believe “in all this nonsense” about an Invisible Man. His wife, however, as he was subsequently to be reminded,
Chapter 27 Kemp read a strange missive, written in pencil on a greasy sheet of paper.“You have been amazingly energetic and clever,” this letter ran, “though what you stand to gain by it I cannot imagine. You are against me. For a whole day you have chased me; you have tried to rob me of
Chapter 26 The Invisible Man seems to have rushed out of Kemp’s house in a state of blind fury. A little child playing near Kemp’s gateway was violently caught up and thrown aside, so that its ankle was broken, and thereafter for some hours the Invisible Man passed out of human perceptions. No one knows
Chapter 25 For a space Kemp was too inarticulate to make Adye understand the swift things that had just happened. They stood on the landing, Kemp speaking swiftly, the grotesque swathings of Griffin still on his arm. But presently Adye began to grasp something of the situation.“He is mad,” said Kemp; “inhuman. He is pure
Chapter 24 But now,” said Kemp, with a side glance out of the window, “what are we to do?”He moved nearer his guest as he spoke in such a manner as to prevent the possibility of a sudden glimpse of the three men who were advancing up the hill road—with an intolerable slowness, as it
Chapter 23 But you begin now to realise,” said the Invisible Man, “the full disadvantage of my condition. I had no shelter—no covering—to get clothing was to forego all my advantage, to make myself a strange and terrible thing. I was fasting; for to eat, to fill myself with unassimilated matter, would be to become
Chapter 22 So last January, with the beginning of a snowstorm in the air about me—and if it settled on me it would betray me!—weary, cold, painful, inexpressibly wretched, and still but half convinced of my invisible quality, I began this new life to which I am committed. I had no refuge, no appliances, no
Chapter 21 In going downstairs the first time I found an unexpected difficulty because I could not see my feet; indeed I stumbled twice, and there was an unaccustomed clumsiness in gripping the bolt. By not looking down, however, I managed to walk on the level passably well.“My mood, I say, was one of exaltation.
Chapter 20 For a moment Kemp sat in silence, staring at the back of the headless figure at the window. Then he started, struck by a thought, rose, took the Invisible Man’s arm, and turned him away from the outlook.“You are tired,” he said, “and while I sit, you walk about. Have my chair.”He placed
Chapter 19 What’s the matter?” asked Kemp, when the Invisible Man admitted him.“Nothing,” was the answer.“But, confound it! The smash?”“Fit of temper,” said the Invisible Man. “Forgot this arm; and it’s sore.”“You’re rather liable to that sort of thing.”“I am.”Kemp walked across the room and picked up the fragments of broken glass. “All the facts