Oliver Twist; or, The Parish Boy's Progress (commonly known as Oliver Twist) (1838) is Charles Dickens' second novel. It is about a boy named Oliver Twist, who escapes from a workhouse and meets a gang of pickpockets in London. The novel is one of Dickens's most well-known works, and has been the subject of numerous film and television adaptations.
Oliver Twist is the first novel in the English language to centre throughout on a child protagonist...
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Oliver Twist; or, The Parish Boy's Progress (commonly known as Oliver Twist) (1838) is Charles Dickens' second novel. It is about a boy named Oliver Twist, who escapes from a workhouse and meets a gang of pickpockets in London. The novel is one of Dickens's most well-known works, and has been the subject of numerous film and television adaptations.
Oliver Twist is the first novel in the English language to centre throughout on a child protagonist and is also notable for Dickens's unromantic portrayal of criminals and their sordid lives. The book also exposed the cruel treatment of many a waif-child in London, which increased international concern in what is sometimes known as "The Great London Waif Crisis." This was the astounding number of orphans in London in the Dickens era. The book's subtitle, The Parish Boy's Progress alludes to Bunyan's The Pilgrim's Progress and also to a pair of popular 18th-century caricature series by William Hogarth, "A Rake's Progress" and "A Harlot's...
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