Oliver Twist

Description

Born in a workhouse to a mother who dies within hours of his birth, Oliver Twist enters the world with no name of his own and no one to claim him. Raised on gruel and cruelty by the parish, he commits the unforgivable offence of asking for more, and is soon cast out to fend for himself. Alone on the road to London, he falls in with the Artful Dodger and is delivered to Fagin, master of a gang of young pickpockets, where the brutal housebreaker Bill Sikes and the conflicted Nancy hold his fate in their hands.

Charles Dickens’s second novel, first serialised in 1837–39, was a fierce attack on the New Poor Law and the hypocrisy of Victorian charity, and a plea on behalf of society’s forgotten children. Its unforgettable villains, dark comedy, and gripping suspense have made it one of the most widely read and adapted stories in English literature.