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

by Nicholas Blincoe

"A fascinating family and social history and a savage indictment of the role of child slavery in the growth of the Industrial Revolution," Catherine Taylor, author of The 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.

From London and Kent to the factories of Manchester, Blincoe retraces the steps of both men, along the way discovering the Camden workhouse that inspired Dickens and revisiting the great stage musical. His journeys with his family and his dog Fredo lead him to an affectionate reassessment of a beloved classic, while also revealing how Dickens shaped the story of his lonely childhood to suppress his debt to his family, hide his affairs and, as his career ignited, abandon the people who had helped him.

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.

Genres: History

325 pages, Kindle Edition

Published September 4, 2025

About the author

Blincoe was born in Rochdale, Lancashire in 1965. After briefly studying art at Middlesex Polytechnic he attended the University of Warwick where he studied Philosophy, gaining a PhD in 1993. The thesis was entitled Depression and Economics. The thesis explored the relationship between political sciences and economic theories, with particular reference to the philosophy of Jacques Derrida.

Blincoe released a Hip-Hop record on Manchester's Factory Records in 1987 and his subsequent relationship with Factory records and the nightclub The Haçienda informed his early work.

In 1995, Blincoe married the Bethlehem Palestinian film-maker Leila Sansour, director of the documentary Jeremy Hardy vs The Israeli Army (2003).

Blincoe has written for British radio and television, including episodes of the BBC TV series Waking The Dead and Channel 4's Goldplated. As a critic and reviewer he has worked for the Modern Review, under the editorship of Toby Young and Julie Burchill. He was a columnist for the London Daily Telegraph until September 2006, writing the weekly 'Marginalia' column.

He is the author of six novels, Acid Casuals (1995), Jello Salad (1997), Manchester Slingback (1998), The Dope Priest (1999), White Mice (2002), Burning Paris (2004). He was a founding member of the New Puritans literary movement and co-edited (with Matt Thorne) the anthology 'All Hail The New Puritans' (2000) which included contributions from Alex Garland, Toby Litt, Geoff Dyer, Daren King, Simon Lewis, and Scarlett Thomas.

Blincoe won the Crime Writer's Association Silver Dagger for his novel Manchester Slingback in 1998. His early novels were crime thrillers set in or around his native Lancashire and the clubs of Manchester.

Some of his more recent novels reflect his life split between homes in London and Bethlehem. He is also a co-editor of a book on the International Solidarity Movement Peace Under Fire: Israel/Palestine and the International Solidarity Movement (2003) with Josie Sandercock, Radhika Sainath, Marissa Mcloughlin, Hussein Khalili, Huwaida Arraf and Ghassan Andoni.