Of Dickens's works, Oliver Twist (1837-39) is the most frequently adapted, numbering as many as nineteen silent film versions, four sound movies (1) and a continuing output of television and video productions (Boulton; Pointer). Despite their success, however, adaptations of the memorable story of Oliver's journey from the workhouse via the slums of London to eventual safety had to come to terms with reactions to the notorious character of Fagin, a Jewish receiver of stolen goods and leader of a gang of juvenile delinquents. Associated as it was with the history of the marginalization of the Jews, Fagin's ethnicity was the more problematic as the novel related it to crime and child abuse, a disturbing connection that has stirred sensitivities to this day. (2) Among objections raised by Victorians, those by Eliza Davis, wife of J. P. Davis, solicitor, who had purchased Tavistock House in August 1860, stand out. Writing to Dickens on 22 June 1863, asking for a donation to a Jewish memorial, she complained about the unflattering characterization of Fagin and accused him through his creation of encouraging "a vile prejudice against the despised Hebrew" (Letters 10: 269 n.). In partial amendment Dickens created Riah, the kindly Jew in Our Mutual Friend (1864-65), though his attempt, weakened by characteristically Victorian contradictions regarding the cultural Other, substantially fails to frame Riah within a credible narrative and does not succeed in making him less of an outcast (Baumgarten). To further disprove anti-Semitic prejudices, Dickens also excised references to Fagin's Jewishness in the 1867 edition of Oliver Twist, beginning with chapter 32 and continuing throughout the text, except for chapters 34 and 35. (3)
