Set in 19th-century England, this is the story of an orphan boy named Oliver Twist who grows up in a notorious workhouse where he is ill- treated and ill-fed like other orphan boys. Oliver gets sold to a trader who also deals with him cruelly. One day, he escapes to London, where he falls among a band of crooks. He faces misfortune after misfortune till all his sufferings come to an end.
In an early example of the social novel, Dickens exposes the horrors of child labour, domestic violence, the organised recruitment of children as criminals, and the presence of street children.