Oliver Twist

About the Author

Charles John Huffham Dickens was born in Portsea, on England’s southern coast, on February 7, 1812. The Dickens family moved several times during his youth, […]

Overview

Dickens, like Shakespeare, is one of those rare writers who has always appealed to a wide variety of readers. Many of Dickens’s books were published, […]

Setting

Dickens sets Oliver Twist in early 19th-century England, a time when long-held ideas and beliefs came under serious scrutiny. Profound changes brought about by the […]

Themes and Characters

Dickens’s story revolves around young Oliver Twist, an orphan brought up at a “charitable” institution “where twenty or thirty other juvenile offenders against the poor-laws […]

Literary Qualities

Oliver Twist is Dickens’s second novel, written when he was still in his middle 20s, and does not display the brilliance of character, thought, form, […]

Social Sensitivity

Some of Dickens’s original readers objected to Oliver Twist’s comparatively frank portrayal of thieves, pickpockets, and prostitutes. But what was considered explicit then is quite […]

Adaptations

Oliver Twist has been the basis for several films, the most popular of which is the musical Oliver! (1968). Starring Ron Moody, Oliver Reed, and […]