Oliver Twist

modulooliver Twist, also known as The Parish Boy's Progress, is the second novel by English author Charles Dickens, published by Richard Bentley in 1838. The story is aboutan orphan, Oliver Twist, who endures a miserable existence in aworkhouse and then is placed with an undertaker. He escapes and travels to London where he meets the Artful Dodger, leader of a gang ofjuvenilepickpockets. Oliver is led to the lair of their elderly criminal trainer Fagin, naively unaware of their unlawful activities.
Oliver Twist is notable for Dickens' unromanticportrayal of criminals and their sordid lives.[1] The book exposed the cruel treatment of many a waif-child in London, which increased international concern in what is sometimes known as "TheGreat London Waif Crisis": the large number of orphans in London in the Dickens era. The book's subtitle, The Parish Boy's Progress, alludes toBunyan's The Pilgrim's Progress and also to apair of popular 18th-century caricature series by William Hogarth, A Rake's Progress and A Harlot's Progress.[2]
An early example of the social novel, the book calls the public'sattention to various contemporary evils, including the Poor Law, child labour, the recruitment of children as criminals, and the presence of 'street children'. Dickens mocks the hypocrisies ofhis time by surrounding the novel's 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 achild 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 story's development.
Oliver Twist hasbeen the subject of numerous film and television adaptations, and is the basis for a highly successful musical play and the multipleAcademy Award winning 1968 motion picture made from it