Excerpt from Oliver Twist, And, Hard Times I embrace the present opportunity of saying a few words in explanation of my aim and object in its pro duction. It is in some sort a duty with me to do so, in gratitude to those who sympathised with me and divined my purpose at the time, and who, perhaps, will not be sorry to have their impression confirmed under my own hand. It is, it seems, a very coarse and shocking circum stance, that some of the characters in these pages are chosen from the most criminal and degraded of Lon don's population; that Sikes is a thief, and Fagin a receiver of stolen goods that the boys are pick pockets, -and the girl is a prostitute. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.