Oliver Twist

Summary

This is Charles Dickens’s second novel and regarded as one of his best. It was originally published as a serial from 1837 to 1839, and titled; Oliver Twist, or; A Parish Boys Progress. As a book, it first appeared in 1838 in three volumes. The story follows the title character Oliver Twist,  who, being born and raised in a workhouse for the first ten years of his life, runs away to nearby London. Here, he falls in with a gang of young thieves and pickpockets controlled by Fagin, an elderly criminal. Through various quirks of fate, he is rescued (twice) by kindly people who eventually realize he is connected to them both through family and historical ties. But his life is also threatened by a long-lost brother and the criminals he has associated with, who fear he will betray them.

It is an example of a Social Novel, which was a particular feature of much of Dickens’s work. Thought to be partly inspired by his own experience of life in the workhouse at the age of twelve, it exposes and satirizes the awfully cruel treatment of the countless orphans in London in the mid-19th century, along with the rampant crime that existed then. The alternative title, The Parish Boy’s Progress, alludes to Bunyan’s The Pilgrims Progress and Hogarth’s paintings; The Rake’s Progress and The Harlot’s Progress.