Oliver Twist is born ina workhouse in 1830s England. His mother,whose name no one knows, is found on the street and dies just afterOliver’s birth. Oliver spends the first nine years of his life ina badly run home for young orphans and then is transferred to aworkhouse for adults. After the other boys bully Oliver into askingfor more gruel at the end of a meal, Mr. Bumble, the parish beadle,offers five pounds to anyone who will take the boy away from theworkhouse. Oliver narrowly escapes being apprenticed to a brutishchimney sweep and is eventually apprenticed to a local undertaker,Mr. Sowerberry. When the undertaker’s other apprentice, Noah Claypole,makes disparaging comments about Oliver’s mother, Oliver attackshim and incurs the Sowerberrys’ wrath. Desperate, Oliver runs awayat dawn and travels toward London.
Outside London, Oliver, starved and exhausted, meetsJack Dawkins, a boy his own age. Jack offers him shelter in theLondon house of his benefactor, fa*gin. It turns out that fa*gin isa career criminal who trains orphan boys to pick pockets for him.After a few days of training, Oliver is sent on a pickpocketingmission with two other boys. When he sees them swipe a handkerchieffrom an elderly gentleman, Oliver is horrified and runs off. Heis caught but narrowly escapes being convicted of the theft. Mr.Brownlow, the man whose handkerchief was stolen, takes the feverishOliver to his home and nurses him back to health. Mr. Brownlow isstruck by Oliver’s resemblance to a portrait of a young woman thathangs in his house. Oliver thrives in Mr. Brownlow’s home, but twoyoung adults in fa*gin’s gang, Bill Sikes and his lover Nancy, captureOliver and return him to fa*gin.
fa*gin sends Oliver to assist Sikes in a burglary. Oliveris shot by a servant of the house and, after Sikes escapes, is takenin by the women who live there, Mrs. Maylie and her beautiful adoptedniece Rose. They grow fond of Oliver, and he spends an idyllic summer withthem in the countryside. But fa*gin and a mysterious man named Monksare set on recapturing Oliver. Meanwhile, it is revealed that Oliver’smother left behind a gold locket when she died. Monks obtains anddestroys that locket. When the Maylies come to London, Nancy meetssecretly with Rose and informs her of fa*gin’s designs, but a memberof fa*gin’s gang overhears the conversation. When word of Nancy’sdisclosure reaches Sikes, he brutally murders Nancy and flees London.Pursued by his guilty conscience and an angry mob, he inadvertentlyhangs himself while trying to escape.
Mr. Brownlow, with whom the Maylies have reunited Oliver, confrontsMonks and wrings the truth about Oliver’s parentage from him. Itis revealed that Monks is Oliver’s half brother. Their father, Mr.Leeford, was unhappily married to a wealthy woman and had an affairwith Oliver’s mother, Agnes Fleming. Monks has been pursuing Oliverall along in the hopes of ensuring that his half-brother is deprivedof his share of the family inheritance. Mr. Brownlow forces Monksto sign over Oliver’s share to Oliver. Moreover, it is discoveredthat Rose is Agnes’s younger sister, hence Oliver’s aunt. fa*ginis hung for his crimes. Finally, Mr. Brownlow adopts Oliver, andthey and the Maylies retire to a blissful existence in the countryside.
