Oliver Twist: 11/24, Mr Bumble and Mrs Corney taking tea

‘Mrs Corney, ma’am’ said Mr Bumble, slowly and marking the time with his tea spoon, ‘I mean to say this, ma’am; that any cat or kitten that could live with you, ma’am and not be fond of its home, must be an ass, ma’am’. ‘Oh Mr Bumble!’, remonstrated Mrs Corney. ‘It’s no use disguising facts, ma’am’ said Mr Bumble, slowly flourishing the teaspoon with a kind of amorous dignity which made him doubly impressive; ‘I would drown it myself with pleasure’.

George Cruikshank supplied twenty-four engravings for the first edition of Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens between February 1837 and April 1839. It was Dickens’s second novel published by Richard Bentley. After Dickens's death in 1870, Cruikshank made the claim that it was he who had originated Oliver Twist, a claim which Dickens's biographer and confidant, John Forster, refuted by referring to Dickens's letters. The plates for that novel certainly reflect Cruikshank's extensive knowledge of the London underworld.