Chapter 53 - Summary, Oliver Twist | Oliver Twist - Summary, Themes & Characters - Novels PDF Download

"And Last"

• Three months later, Rose and Harry are married at the church where Harry’s going to be the new clergyman.
• Mrs. Maylie moves in with them, and they’re all very happy together.
• Turns out that there wasn’t much money left in Monks’s father’s estate, because Monks had squandered most of it. Even though it should all go to Oliver, Mr. Brownlow doesn’t want to cut Monks off without a penny, so they divide it in half. But it’s only about three thousand pounds each.
• Monks disappears with his half of the money to some distant part of America, squanders it, falls back on his old wicked ways, and eventually dies of some complication from his disease in prison.
• All the surviving members of Fagin’s gang also die far from home—they were transported from England.
• Mr. Brownlow legally adopts Oliver as his own son—after all, Oliver was the son of his oldest friend.
• The two of them, and Mrs. Bedwin, move to a house only about a mile from the Maylies’ new house, so they all form an idyllic, happy little community.
• Mr. Losberne decides that Chertsey isn’t such a great village anymore, now that the Maylies have left, so he gets a little cottage near theirs, and moves as well.
• Mr. Losberne develops a taste for gardening, and fishing, and carpentry, and various other hobbies.
• Mr. Grimwig and Mr. Losberne have become great friends, so Mr. Grimwig visits several times a year, and always criticizes the sermon to Harry’s face, even if he thought it was good.
• Noah Claypole is pardoned for his share in all of the crimes of Fagin’s gang because he was a witness against them. He decides that being a paid informer is a pretty good gig, so he goes into that full time.
• Mr. and Mrs. Bumble are fired from the workhouse, and become so poor that they eventually have to enter the same workhouse as paupers.
• Mr. Giles and Brittles move with the Maylies to the new house, and divide their time between Mr. Brownlow’s house and the Maylies’.
• Charley Bates decides to give up crime, and becomes a farm hand in the north of England.
• The narrator gives a brief sketch of how happy they all are together, and how Rose and Harry have lots of little babies, and how Mr. Brownlow loved Oliver as his own son.
• The chapter ends with a description of the tablet on the wall in the church with the name "Agnes" on it, in memory of Oliver’s mother and Rose’s sister.