Talk:Oliver Twist

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[edit] Oliver Twist's Birth Year

In the Oliver Twist topic, which summarizes the novel by Dickens, the article sites Oliver's birth year as 1797. That would make the main part of the story, after his birth, take place in the year 1806. In fact the whole of the story, from when Oliver is 9 to when he's 12, take place before 1810.

The story is about Dicken's opinion of the Poor Laws, which were implimented in 1834. The book was published around 1838, when the Poor Laws were in full swing. How could Oliver be born and come to the age of nine years 25 years before the subject of the Poor Laws, which is what the book is about?

I'm thinking that whoever wrote this article has the fact of Oliver's birth year wrong. Otherwise, I'm willing to be proven wrong, if the writer of the article can site the source. I've searched the text on-line and have found no references such as 1797.

Regards,

Christina

I can't find any mention of Oliver's birth year in the article. Maybe it was from a previous version and is now removed. DJ Clayworth 15:54, 5 April 2006 (UTC)

If it weren't, it would be worth removing it now. I haven't read the text in ages, but barring an explicit reference in the text, we shouldn't be offering up 'facts' that can't be proven, and this does qualify as a request for reference. (I suppose it would be easy to load the text into a word processor from a Gutenberg download and do a "search" for "1797." It's possible that Dickens set his tale before the poor laws crisis to disguise the fact that he was criticizing a current law, as that was common practice into his own day.) Geogre 23:31, 5 April 2006 (UTC)