One of Dicken's most popular novels. "Oliver Twist is the story of a young orphan who dares to say, "Please, sir, I want some more." After escaping from the workhouse where he was born, Oliver finds himself on the mean streets of Victorian-era London and unwittingly recruited by a gang of thieving urchins. With them, Oliver encounters the loathsome Fagin, the tragic Nancy, the crafty Artful Dodger, and one of the greatest villains of all time--the terrifying Bill Sikes. Darkened by Dickens's gritty descriptions of street life, the novel is buoyed by the purity of the orphan Oliver. Though he is treated with cruelty and surrounded by coarseness for most of his life, his pious innocence leads him at last to salvation.

Charles John Huffam Dickens FRSA (7 February 1812 � 9 June 1870), pen-name "Boz", was the most popular English novelist of the Victorian era and one of the most popular of all time. He created some of literature's most memorable characters. His novels and short stories have never gone out of print.A concern with what he saw as the pressing need for social reform is a theme that runs throughout his work.
Much of his work first appeared in periodicals and magazines in serialised form, a favoured way of publishing fiction at the time. Other writers of the time would complete entire novels before serial publication commenced, but Dickens often wrote his in parts, in the order in which they were meant to appear. The practice lent his stories a particular rhythm, punctuated by one cliffhanger after another to keep the public eager for the next instalment. Critics and fellow-novelists such as George Gissing and G. K. Chesterton have applauded Dickens for his mastery of prose, and for his teeming gallery of unique characters, many of whom have acquired iconic status in the English-speaking world. Others such as Henry James and Virginia Woolf have accused him of sentimentality and implausibility.