Review

Within the genre of this story, the storyline offer a yong person in search of his identity and place in adult world.Oliver Twist is the second novel by English author Charles Dickens, published by Richard Bentley in 1838.


The story is about an orphan Oliver Twist, who escapes from a workhouse 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.


The book was originally published in Bentley's Miscellany as a serial, in monthly instalments that began appearing in the month of February 1837 and continued through April 1839. 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.

An early example of the social novel, the book calls the public's 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 novel's serious themes with sarcasm and dark humour.