Oliver Twist was published in 1838. This story shows in vivid colors the miseries of the pauper's home where the inmates are robbed and starved, while the dead are hurried into unhonored graves; the haunts of villains and thieves, where the wretched poor are purposely made criminals by those who have sinned past hope; and one wrong-doing is used to force the victim deeper in vice. With such lives are interwoven those of a better sort, showing how men and women in all grades have power on others for good or ill.

Oliver Twist — so called because the workhouse master had just then reached the letter "T" in naming the waifs — was born in the poorhouse, where his mother's wanderings ceased forever. When the hungry lad asked for more of the too thin gruel he was whipped. Bound out to work, he runs away from this slavery and goes to London. The Artful Dodger takes the starving lad to the den of Fagin the Jew, the pickpocket's school. But he will not steal. He finds a home. He is kidnapped, and forced to be again with the bad ones, and to act as helper to Sykes the robber in house-breaking. Nancy's womanly heart, bad though her life may be, works to set him free. Once more good people shelter him, rescuing him without assistance of the Bow Street officers, who make brave talk. The kind old scholar, Mr. Brownlow, is the good genius who opens before him a way to liberty and a life suited to his nature. The excitable country doctor deceives the police, and saves Oliver for an honest career. The eccentric Mr. Grimwig should not be overlooked. The mystery of his mother's fate is solved, and he finds a sister ...