Oliver Twist (Ebook)

Born into poverty and hardship, Oliver Twist is an unfortunate young boy. An orphan, he is sent to a workhouse at a tender age, forced to labor all day with very little to eat. Oliver creates a scandal one day when he requests a second helping of the miserable gruel the workhouse children are fed. Thrown out of this sorry excuse for a home, Oliver is taken in as an undertaker's apprentice. Soon realizing that his fate has become no less desperate, Oliver runs away and finds himself under the wing of the London crime boss Fagin. Along with other young thieves working for Fagin, Oliver turns to a life of crime against his better judgment. Although it is here, in the midst of wickedness, that he finds the only kindness he has known, Oliver's destiny is far from complete. As in many of Dickens's greatest novels, our hero's fortunes rise and fall and an incredible cast of characters play out a grand human drama, highlighting such glaring social problems of the day as poverty and child labor in industrial society.