Oliver Twist is the second novel by English author Charles Dickens. The story is about an orphan Oliver Twist, who lives a miserable existence in a workhouse. He escapes and travels to London where he meets Artful Dodger (leader of a gang of pickpockets) and the criminal trainer Fagin.

Oliver Twist is well known for Dickens’ unromantic description of criminals and their sordid lives. The book calls the public’s attention to various contemporary evils, including the Poor Law, child labour and the recruitment of children as criminals. It is likely that Dickens’s own early youth as a child labourer contributed to the story’s development.

Oliver Twist has been the subject of numerous film and television adaptations.

RELATE THE CHARACTERS TO THEIR DESCRIPTIONS:

Oliver Twist
Fagin
Nancy
Mr Brownlow
Bill Sikes
Mr Bumble
The Artful Dodger
Charley Bates
Toby Crackit
Mrs Bedwin
Noah Claypole
Mr Sowerberry
Mrs Sowerberry

a) The cleverest of Fagin’s young pickpockets. He talks and dresses like a grown man.
b) A brutal professional burglar brought up in Fagin’s gang
c) An orphan born in a workhouse
d) One of Fagin’s pickpockets
e) A criminal who trains homeless children to pick pockets
f) Mr Sowerberry’s mean wife
g) A well-off gentleman who is Oliver’s first benefactor
h) One of Fagin and Sikes’associates, crass and not too bright
i) Mr Brownlow’s kindhearted housekeeper
j) The undertaker to whom Oliver is apprenticed
k) A pompous beadle who symbolizes self-righteousness, greed, hypocrisy and folly
l) A charity boy who bullies and mistreats Oliver
m) A young prostitute and Bill Sikes’lover