"Oliver Twist" the saga of a boy who passes through the trials and tribulations of life to emerge stronger from it, first appeared as a monthly serial in "Bentley’s Miscellany" in 1837 and later was published as a book. The novel fictionalizes the experiences of the writer and reflects the social evils prevailing at that time. Oliver is a waif brought up in a workhouse where he is ill-treated and sent to work for an undertaker whose family abuses him. He runs away to London where he falls into the hands of criminals. His natural goodness and luck help him to escape from his oppressors and establish himself in the world of respectable people. As a boy Dickens himself suffered economic insecurity and humiliation. At the tender age of twelve, he was sent to work at a blacking factory to earn six shillings a week. These childhood experiences of Dickens have been transferred into the early pages of the novel and Oliver portrays the feeling of despair that the author had experienced as a child. The book, in two volumes, covers the story of Oliver Twist in full and throws light on the industrial England where migratory population of villages lived in workhouse and when deprived of work took to crime. Sections of the book also explore the critical success of the novel in its contemporary times. Complete study of the novel, its author and his craft world be very useful for the students of literature.
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