The Artful Dodger

"The Artful Dodger" surveys the vast and varied territory that Bantock's work encompasses: from his English art-school days to paperback covers, pure abstract experimentation to pop-up books, "Griffin & Sabine" to his most recent work. His own words lend a highly personal, often revealing angle to more than 350 color images.

A brand new edition of a Terry Pratchett classic – set in Victorian London, and starring cunning but kind Dodger, as he sets off on a whirlwind adventure through the city streets THE SEWER IS DODGER’S WORLD . . . He hunts treasure there – coins and jewels lost in the dark and dirty drains. It’s a good life, if you don’t mind getting your hands (and arms and feet and face) dirty. But one night, Dodger helps a young woman flee two ruffians. Now, a street urchin dressed as a gentleman, he must discover the secret behind her escape. Along the way he’ll befriend Charles Dickens, outwit Sweeny Todd and reach the giddy heights of Victorian society. Dodger may be living in the gutter, but he’s heading for the stars . . .

Shortly after he was convicted of dodging the draft in World War I, Grover Cleveland Bergdoll asked the U.S. Army to temporarily release him from prison. He had buried a valuable cache of gold during the war, he claimed, and he wanted to recover it before someone else did. Bergdoll's subsequent escape would mark the start of a 20-year standoff with the American government. Although the case is largely forgotten today, Grover Cleveland Bergdoll was a household name for much of the early 20th century. He was the son of a wealthy German-American brewing family, an amateur race car driver, and a skilled aviator who trained with the Wright Brothers. After his draft evasion, he was captured at his stately mansion as his gun-toting mother tried to fend off the police. Bergdoll's escape overseas would prove to be a thorny issue in international politics. It resulted in a contentious investigation in Congress, where one witness was nearly shot by a representative. He was regularly pilloried by veterans' groups, and American servicemen twice tried to kidnap him. As Bergdoll's exile dragged on, he was left with a harsh choice: return to the country where he was a wanted man, or stay in Europe to face the perils of the Nazi dictatorship.

Ali Smith melds the tale and the essay into a magical hybrid form, a song of praise to the power of stories in our lives In February 2012, the novelist Ali Smith delivered the Weidenfeld lectures on European comparative literature at St. Anne’s College, Oxford. Her lectures took the shape of this set of discursive stories. Refusing to be tied down to either fiction or the essay form, Artful is narrated by a character who is haunted—literally—by a former lover, the writer of a series of lectures about art and literature. A hypnotic dialogue unfolds, a duet between and a meditation on art and storytelling, a book about love, grief, memory, and revitalization. Smith’s heady powers as a fiction writer harmonize with her keen perceptions as a reader and critic to form a living thing that reminds us that life and art are never separate. Artful is a book about the things art can do, the things art is full of, and the quicksilver nature of all artfulness. It glances off artists and writers from Michelangelo through Dickens, then all the way past postmodernity, exploring every form, from ancient cave painting to 1960s cinema musicals. This kaleidoscope opens up new, inventive, elastic insights—on the relation of aesthetic form to the human mind, the ways we build our minds from stories, the bridges art builds between us. Artful is a celebration of literature’s worth in and to the world and a meaningful contribution to that worth in itself. There has never been a book quite like it.

Oliver Twist has been rescued and is safe and well. Bill Sikes is dead. Fagin is in prison under sentence of death by hanging. His gang of pickpockets and thieves has been disbanded. One of the gang, Jack Dawkins, is in Newgate prison awaiting transportation to Australia. His crime? Theft of a silver snuffbox. What happens to him is the story of a young man trying his best to survive in the harshest of worlds. How does he fare? It is not for nothing that Jack Dawkins is known as the Artful Dodger!

"Delightful Dickensian pastiche. Readers will definitely be clamouring for more." - Mail on Sunday London 1827. Jack Dawkins, the Artful Dodger, is sentenced to transportation to Australia as a common thief. But Dodger certainly isn't common and sees transportation as the start of just another 'artful' adventure. Abel Magwitch, convict cricketers, sadistic officers, a heroic pugilist and a smattering of girls of easy virtue accompany Dodger on a journey of action, adventure and discovery. This meticulously researched novel will appeal to Dickens aficionados and the general reader alike. Micawber, Nell, Peggotty, the villainous Monks, and Dickens himself are all beautifully woven into the dramatic events of Dodger - Down Under. "Clever and great fun!" - Jeffrey Archer "A right ripping yarn. Mr Weston writes 'trippingly off the tongue'." - Ian McShane "I have always thought the Artful Dodger's story needed telling and now David Weston has told it, in a wonderfully engaging way." - Julian Fellowes "A terrific read and a great literary conceit" - Barrie Rutter "Imaginative, powerful and beautifully written." - Robert Hardy

The Artful Dodger is back! Returning to the page for the first time in 175 years, London's most skilled and charismatic thief is back to ply his trade on the capital's streets once more. From the rooftops to the sewers, Dodger leads us on a witty and thrilling adventure through Dickensian London.