Friends of the Dickens Forum,

  Fellow Dickns-Eller and scholar Harland Nelson has directed us to an 
article of a particular
cast, the importance of geography and the final plates of OLIVER TWIST.  
Ruth Richardson has
a unique ability to see through detailed geographical fact to the 
historical importance of a site.
In identifying the locus of Oliver's workhouse she has brought alive the 
London area west
of the British Museum and Tottenham Court Road.  Geographical sites for 
her become historical
stages. Here's Harland:
--------

Have you read Ruth Richardson's article "The Subterranean Topography in 
Oliver Twist" in the current
Dickens Quarterly?  Superb, of course; the most striking point, to me, 
is how she establishes the thematic
resonance of the final (Church) plate.  I emailed her today thanking her 
for that,

Harland Nelson

p.p:  Close to the locus of Ian McEwen's SATURDAY?