Charles Dickens - Oliver Twist

Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens in 53 Chapters.

This audio recording is a librivox recording and is in the Public Domain.

Oliver Twist is an 1838 novel by Charles Dickens. It was originally published as a serial.

The story is about an orphan Oliver Twist, who endures a miserable existence in a workhouse and then is placed with an undertaker. He escapes and travels to London where he meets the Artful Dodger, leader of a gang of juvenile pickpockets. Oliver is led to the lair of their elderly criminal trainer Fagin, naively unaware of their unlawful activities.

Like most of Dickens' work, the book is used to call the public's attention to various contemporary social evils, including the workhouse, child labour and the recruitment of children as criminals. The novel is full of sarcasm and dark humour, even as it treats its serious subject, revealing the hypocrisies of the time.

It has been the subject of numerous film and television adaptations, and the basis for a highly successful British musical, Oliver!