Logo

Oliver Twist is the second novel by English author Charles Dickens. The story is about an orphan Oliver Twist who endures a miserable existence in a workhouse and then is placed with an undertaker. He escapes and travels to London where he meets the Artful Dodger leader of a gang of juvenile pickpockets. Oliver is led to the lair of their elderly criminal trainer Fagin naively unaware of their unlawful activities.

Oliver Twist is notable for Dickens unromantic portrayal of criminals and their sordid lives. The book exposed the cruel treatment of many a waif child in London which increased international concern in what is sometimes known as The Great London Waif Crisis: the large number of orphans in London in the Dickens era. The books subtitle The Parish Boys progress alludes to Bunyans The pilgrims progress and also to a pair of popular 18th century caricature series by William Hogarh A Rakes Progress and A Harlots Progress.

An early example of the social novel the book calls the publics attention to various contemporary evils including the poor law child labour and the recruitment of children as criminals. Dickens mocks the hypocrisies of his time by surrounding the novels serious themes with sarcasm and dark humour. The novel may have been inspired by the story of Robert Blincoe an Orphan whose account of hardships as a child labourer in a cotton mill was widely read in the 1830s. It is likely that Dickens's own early youth as a child labourer contributed to the storys development.

Oliver Twist has been the subject of numerous film and television adaptations and is basis for highly successful musical play and the multiple Academy Award winning 1968 motion picture made from it.