Oliver Twist. Volumes 1, 2 and 3.

First full book edition

These three volumes published by Richard Bentley, the owner of Bentley's Miscellany, under the Dicken's pseudonym, "Boz"

Oliver Twist: or, the Parish Boy's Progress, Charles Dickens's second novel, was published as a serial from 1837 to 1839, and as a three-volume book in 1838. Born in a workhouse, the orphan Oliver Twist is sold into apprenticeship with an undertaker. After escaping, Oliver travels to London, where he meets the "Artful Dodger", a member of a gang of juvenile pickpockets led by the elderly criminal Fagin.

Oliver Twist portrays unromantically the sordid lives of criminals and exposes the cruel treatment of the many orphans in London in the mid-19th century. The alternative title, The Parish Boy's Progress, alludes to Bunyan's The Pilgrim's Progress, as well as the 18th-century caricature series by painter William Hogarth, A Rake's Progress and A Harlot's Progress.

In this early example of the social novel, Dickens satirises child labour, domestic violence, the recruitment of children as criminals, and the presence of street children. The novel may have been inspired by the story of Robert Blincoe, an orphan whose account of working as a child labourer in a cotton mill was widely read in the 1830s. It is likely that Dickens's own experiences as a youth contributed as well.

Oliver Twist has been the subject of numerous adaptations, including a highly successful musical, Oliver!, the multiple Academy Award-winning 1968 motion picture, and Disney's animated film Oliver & Company in 1988.

The novel was first published in monthly instalments, from February 1837 to April 1839, in the magazine Bentley's Miscellany. It was originally intended to form part of Dickens's serial, The Mudfog Papers. George Cruikshank provided one steel etching per month to illustrate each instalment. The novel first appeared in book form six months before the initial serialisation was completed, in three volumes published by Richard Bentley, the owner of Bentley's Miscellany, under the author's pseudonym, "Boz". It included 24 steel-engraved plates by Cruikshank.

Serial publication dates:

• I – February 1837 (chapters 1–2)
• II – March 1837 (chapters 3–4)
• III – April 1837 (chapters 5–6)
• IV – May 1837 (chapters 7–8)
• V – July 1837 (chapters 9-11)
• VI – August 1837 (chapters 12–13)
• VII – September 1837 (chapters 14–15)
• VIII – November 1837 (chapters 16–17)
• IX – December 1837 (chapters 18–19)
• X – January 1838 (chapters 20–22)
• XI – February 1838 (chapters 23–25)
• XII – March 1838 (chapters 26–27)
• XIII – April 1838 (chapters 28–30)
• XIV – May 1838 (chapters 31–32)
• XV – June 1838 (chapters 33–34)
• XVI – July 1838 (chapters 35–37)
• XVII – August 1838 (chapters 38–part of 39)
• XVIII – October 1838 (conclusion of chapter 39–41)
• XIX – November 1838 (chapters 42–43)
• XX – December 1838 (chapters 44–46)
• XXI – January 1839 (chapters 47–49)
• XXII – February 1839 (chapter 50)
• XXIII – March 1839 (chapter 51)
• XXIV – April 1839 (chapters 52–53)

THE PLOT

Workhouse years

Oliver Twist is born into a life of poverty and misfortune, raised in a workhouse in the fictional town of Mudfog, located 70 miles (110 km) north of London. He is orphaned by his father's mysterious absence and his mother Agnes' death in childbirth, welcomed only in the workhouse and robbed of her gold name locket. Oliver is meagerly provided for under the terms of the Poor Law and spends the first nine years of his life living at a baby farm in the "care" of a woman named Mrs Mann, who embezzles much of the money entrusted to the baby farm by the parish. Oliver is brought up with little food and few comforts. Around the time of Oliver's ninth birthday, Mr Bumble, the parish beadle, removes Oliver from the baby farm and puts him to work picking and weaving oakum at the main workhouse. Oliver, who toils with very little food, remains in the workhouse for six months. One day, the desperately hungry boys decide to draw lots; the loser must ask for another portion of gruel. This task falls to Oliver himself, who at the next meal comes forward trembling, bowl in hand, and begs the master for gruel with his famous request: "Please, sir, I want some more".

A great uproar ensues. The board of well-fed gentlemen who administer the workhouse offer £5 to any person wishing to take on the boy as an apprentice. Mr Gamfield, a brutal chimney sweep, almost claims Oliver. However, when Oliver begs despairingly not to be sent away with "that dreadful man", a kindly magistrate refuses to sign the indentures. Later, Mr Sowerberry, an undertaker employed by the parish, takes Oliver into his service. He treats Oliver better and, because of the boy's sorrowful countenance, uses him as a mourner at children's funerals. Mr Sowerberry is in an unhappy marriage, and his wife looks down on Oliver and misses few opportunities to underfeed and mistreat him. He also suffers torment at the hands of Noah Claypole, an oafish and bullying fellow apprentice and "charity boy" who is jealous of Oliver's promotion to mute, and Charlotte, the Sowerberrys' maidservant, who is in love with Noah.

Wanting to bait Oliver, Noah insults Oliver's mother, calling her "a regular right-down bad 'un". Enraged, Oliver assaults and even gets the better of the much bigger boy. However, Mrs Sowerberry takes Noah's side, helps him to subdue, punch, and beat Oliver, and later compels her husband and Mr Bumble, who has been sent for in the aftermath of the fight, to beat Oliver again. Once Oliver is sent to his room for the night he breaks down and weeps. The next day Oliver escapes from the Sowerberrys' house and later decides to run away to London to seek a better life.

Nearing London, Oliver encounters Jack Dawkins, a pickpocket more commonly known by the nickname the "Artful Dodger", and his sidekick, a boy of a humorous nature named Charley Bates, but Oliver's innocent and trusting nature fails to see any dishonesty in their actions. The Dodger provides Oliver with a free meal and tells him of a gentleman in London who will "give him lodgings for nothing, and never ask for change". Grateful for the unexpected assistance, Oliver follows the Dodger to the "old gentleman's" residence. In this way Oliver unwittingly falls in with an infamous Jewish criminal known as Fagin, the gentleman of whom the Artful Dodger spoke. Ensnared, Oliver lives with Fagin and his gang of juvenile pickpockets in their lair at Saffron Hill for some time, unaware of their criminal occupations. He believes they make wallets and handkerchiefs. He is also clueless about Fagin's lessons with the boys, whereupon he impersonates an English gentleman browsing shops, and the boys must pick everything from his pockets while staying out of sight. Oliver considers this a strange game. Fagin has Oliver in this training until he successfully picks everything off him. Fagin rewards Oliver with a shilling and orders him out on the street with Charley Bates and the Artful Dodger.

Oliver follows the pair to "make handkerchiefs", only to learn that their real mission is to pick pockets. The Dodger and Charley steal the handkerchief of an old gentleman named Mr. Brownlow and promptly flee. When he finds his handkerchief missing, Mr. Brownlow turns round, sees Oliver running away in fright, and pursues him, thinking he was the thief. Others join the chase, capture Oliver, and bring him before the magistrate. Curiously, Mr. Brownlow has second thoughts about the boy – he seems reluctant to believe he is a pickpocket. To the judge's evident disappointment, a bookstall holder who saw the Dodger commit the crime clears Oliver, who, by now actually ill, faints in the courtroom. Mr. Brownlow takes Oliver home and, along with his housekeeper Mrs. Bedwin, cares for him. While recovering, both Mrs. Bedwin and Mr. Brownlow notice how Oliver bears a striking resemblance to a painting of a woman who was the wife of a deceased friend of Mr. Brownlow's.

Oliver stays with Mr. Brownlow, recovers rapidly, and blossoms from the unaccustomed kindness. His bliss is interrupted when Fagin, fearing Oliver might tell the police about his criminal gang, decides that Oliver must be brought back to his hideout. When Mr. Brownlow sends Oliver out to pay for some books, one of the gang, a young girl named Nancy, whom Oliver had previously met at Fagin's, accosts him with help from her abusive lover, the robber Bill Sikes, and Oliver is quickly bundled back to Fagin's lair. The thieves take the five-pound note Mr. Brownlow had entrusted to him, and strip him of his fine new clothes. Oliver, shocked, flees and attempts to call for police assistance, but is dragged back by the Artful Dodger, Charley, and Fagin. Nancy, alone, is sympathetic towards Oliver and saves him from beatings by Fagin and Sikes.

In a renewed attempt to draw Oliver into a life of crime, Fagin forces him to participate in a burglary. Nancy reluctantly assists in recruiting him, all the while assuring the boy that she will help him if she can. Sikes, after threatening to kill him if he does not cooperate, puts Oliver through a small window and orders him to unlock the front door. The robbery goes wrong and Oliver is shot by people in the house and wounded in his left arm. After being abandoned by Sikes, the wounded Oliver makes it back to the house and ends up under the care of the people he was supposed to rob: Miss Rose and her guardian Mrs. Maylie.

The mysterious man Monks plots with Fagin to destroy Oliver's reputation. Monks denounces Fagin's failure to turn Oliver into a criminal, and the two of them agree on a plan to make sure he does not find out about his past. Monks is apparently related to Oliver in some way. Back in Oliver's hometown, Mr Bumble has married Mrs Corney, the matron of the workhouse where the story first began, only to find himself in an unhappy marriage, constantly arguing with his domineering wife. After one such argument, Mr Bumble walks to a pub where he meets Monks, who questions him about Oliver. Bumble informs Monks that he knows someone who can give Monks more information for a price, and later Monks meets secretly with the Bumbles. After Mrs Bumble tells Monks all she knows for a price, Monks takes the locket and ring proving Oliver's parentage, and drops them into the river flowing under his place. Monks relates these events to Fagin, unaware that Nancy is eavesdropping on their conversations and plans to inform Oliver's benefactors. Mr Brownlow returns to London, where Oliver sees him, and brings him to meet the Maylies.

Now ashamed of her role in Oliver's kidnapping and worried for the boy's safety, Nancy goes to Rose Maylie, staying in London. She knows that Monks and Fagin are plotting to get their hands on the boy again and offers to meet again any Sunday night on London bridge. Rose tells Mr Brownlow, and the two then make plans with all their party in London. The first Sunday night, Nancy tries to leave for her walk, but Sikes refuses permission when she declines to state exactly where she is going. Fagin realizes that Nancy is up to something, perhaps has a new boyfriend, and resolves to find out what her secret is.

Meanwhile, Noah has fallen out with the undertaker Mr Sowerberry, stolen money from him, and fled to London with Charlotte. Using the name "Morris Bolter", he joins Fagin's gang for protection and becomes a practicer of "the kinchin lay" (robbing of children), and Charlotte is put with the girls. Fagin sends Noah to watch the Artful Dodger on trial, after he is caught with a stolen silver snuff box; the Dodger is convicted while showing his style, with a punishment of transportation to Australia. Next, Noah is sent by Fagin to spy on Nancy, and discovers her meeting with Rose and Mr Brownlow on the bridge, hearing their discussion of why she did not appear the prior week and how to save Oliver from Fagin and Monks.

Fagin passes the information on to Sikes angrily, twisting the story to make it sound as if Nancy had informed on him, when she had not. Believing Nancy to be a traitor, Sikes beats her to death in a fit of rage that very night and flees to the countryside to escape from the police and his conscience. There, Sikes is haunted by visions of Nancy and alarmed by news of her murder spreading across the countryside. He returns to London to find a hiding place and intends to steal money from Fagin and flee to France, only to die by accidentally hanging himself while attempting to lower himself from a rooftop to flee from a mob angry at Nancy's murder.

Resolution

While Sikes is fleeing the mob, Mr Brownlow forces Monks to listen to the story connecting him, once called Edward Leeford, and Oliver as half-brothers, or to face the police for his crimes. Their father, Edwin Leeford, was once friends with Brownlow. Edwin had been in a miserable marriage that produced Monks, only to have Monks' mother separate. Edwin had associated with an older gentleman who was friends to him and Mr. Brownlow, who had had two daughters, one who was a girl of seventeen and the other a toddler. Edwin fell in love with the elder daughter, Agnes, but their relationship had been secretive. Edwin had to help a dying friend in Rome, and then died there himself, leaving Agnes, "his guilty love", in England, whereupon she died after giving birth to Oliver. Mr Brownlow has a picture of Agnes and had begun making inquiries when he noticed a marked resemblance between her and Oliver. Monks had hunted his brother to destroy him, to gain all in their father's will. Meeting with Monks and the Bumbles in Oliver's native town, Brownlow asks Oliver to give half his inheritance to Monks to give him a second chance; Oliver is more than happy to comply. Monks moves to "the new world", where he squanders his money, reverts to crime, and dies in prison. Fagin is arrested, tried and condemned to the gallows. On the eve of Fagin's hanging, Oliver, accompanied by Mr Brownlow in an emotional scene, visits Fagin in Newgate Prison, in hope of retrieving papers from Monks. Fagin is lost in a world of his own fear of impending death.

On a happier note, Monks revealed that Rose was the younger sister of Agnes, and thus Oliver's aunt. She marries her sweetheart Harry Maylie, who gives up his political ambitions to become a parson, drawing all their friends to settle near them. Oliver lives happily with Mr Brownlow, who adopts him. Due to Noah's cooperation with the law during the pursuit of Fagin, he is granted immunity and becomes a paid, semi-professional police informer. The Bumbles lose their positions and are reduced to poverty, ending up in the workhouse themselves. All the members of Fagin's gang suffer unhappy endings, with one exception. Charley Bates, horrified by Sikes' murder of Nancy, becomes an honest citizen, moves to the country, and eventually becomes prosperous. The novel ends with the tombstone of Oliver's mother on which is written only one name: Agnes.

The Mudfog Papers are an anthology of stories written by Charles Dickens and published from 1837 to 1838 in the monthly literary journal Bentley's Miscellany, which he was then editing. The Mudfog Papers relates the proceedings of a fictional society, The Mudfog Society for the Advancement of Everything, a Pickwickian parody of the British Association for the Advancement of Science. The latter, founded in York in 1831, was one of numerous Victorian learned societies dedicated to the advancement of science. Like The Pickwick Papers, The Mudfog Papers claims affinity with parliamentary reports, memoirs and posthumous papers. The serial was illustrated by George Cruikshank. The fictional town of Mudfog was based on Chatham in Kent, where Dickens spent part of his youth. When Oliver Twist first appeared in Bentley's Miscellany in February 1837, Mudfog was described by Dickens as the town where Oliver was born and spent his early years, making Oliver Twist related to The Mudfog Papers, but this allusion was removed when the novel was published as a book. At the conclusion of his first contribution, about the mayor of the provincial town of Mudfog, Dickens explains that "this is the first time we have published any of our gleanings from this particular source", referring to The Mudfog Papers. He also suggests that "at some future period, we may venture to open the chronicles of Mudfog".

The Papers was first published as a book under the title The Mudfog Papers and Other Sketches in 1880.

Bentley's Miscellany was an English literary magazine started by Richard Bentley. It was published between 1836 and 1868. Already a successful publisher of novels, Bentley began the journal in 1836 and invited Charles Dickens to be its first editor. Dickens serialised his second novel Oliver Twist, but soon fell out with Bentley over editorial control, calling him a "Burlington Street Brigand". He resigned as editor in 1839 and William Harrison Ainsworth took over. Ainsworth would also only stay in the job for three years but bought the magazine from Bentley a decade later. In 1868 Ainsworth sold the magazine back to Bentley, who merged it with the Temple Bar Magazine.

Aside from the works of Dickens and Ainsworth other significant authors published in the magazine included: Wilkie Collins, Catharine Sedgwick, Richard Brinsley Peake, Thomas Moore, Thomas Love Peacock, William Mudford, Mrs Henry Wood, Charles Robert Forrester (sometimes under the pseudonym Hal Willis), Frances Minto Elliot, Isabella Frances Romer, The Ingoldsby Legends and some of Edgar Allan Poe's short stories. It published drawings by the caricaturist George Cruikshank, and was the first publication to publish cartoons by John Leech, who became a prominent Punch cartoonist.

'Boz' - In December 1833, Charles Dickens's first literary effort was published. It was a sketch or essay entitled A Dinner at Poplar Walk. Other sketches soon followed. Dickens wanted a memorable way of identifying the sketches as his. He finally picked a nickname for himself. One of his favourite characters in Goldsmith's Vicar of Wakefield was called Moses. Moses became Boses which became Boz. In 1836 two collections of the essays (one published in February and a second in August) entitled Sketches by Boz were published. They were a great success. In 1839 the two collections were combined into one volume and reissued.

Charles John Huffam Dickens FRSA (7 February 1812 – 9 June 1870) was an English writer and social critic. He created some of the world's best-known fictional characters and is regarded by many as the greatest novelist of the Victorian era. His works enjoyed unprecedented popularity during his lifetime and, by the 20th century, critics and scholars had recognised him as a literary genius. His novels and short stories are widely read today.

Born in Portsmouth, Dickens left school to work in a factory when his father was incarcerated in a debtors' prison. Despite his lack of formal education, he edited a weekly journal for 20 years, wrote 15 novels, five novellas, hundreds of short stories and non-fiction articles, lectured and performed readings extensively, was an indefatigable letter writer, and campaigned vigorously for children's rights, education and other social reforms.

Dickens's literary success began with the 1836 serial publication of The Pickwick Papers, a publishing phenomenon—thanks largely to the introduction of the character Sam Weller in the fourth episode—that sparked Pickwick merchandise and spin-offs. Within a few years Dickens had become an international literary celebrity, famous for his humour, satire and keen observation of character and society. His novels, most of them published in monthly or weekly instalments, pioneered the serial publication of narrative fiction, which became the dominant Victorian mode for novel publication. Cliffhanger endings in his serial publications kept readers in suspense. The instalment format allowed Dickens to evaluate his audience's reaction, and he often modified his plot and character development based on such feedback. For example, when his wife's chiropodist expressed distress at the way Miss Mowcher in David Copperfield seemed to reflect her disabilities, Dickens improved the character with positive features. His plots were carefully constructed and he often wove elements from topical events into his narratives. Masses of the illiterate poor would individually pay a halfpenny to have each new monthly episode read to them, opening up and inspiring a new class of readers.

His 1843 novella A Christmas Carol remains especially popular and continues to inspire adaptations in every artistic genre. Oliver Twist and Great Expectations are also frequently adapted and, like many of his novels, evoke images of early Victorian London. His 1859 novel A Tale of Two Cities (set in London and Paris) is his best-known work of historical fiction. The most famous celebrity of his era, he undertook, in response to public demand, a series of public reading tours in the later part of his career.

The term Dickensian is used to describe something that is reminiscent of Dickens and his writings, such as poor social or working conditions, or comically repulsive characters.