He was born in a workhouse, sold into a coffin-maker's trade, and swallowed whole by London's criminal underworld the moment he dared ask for a second bowl of gruel. Oliver Twist thrusts a starving orphan straight into the clutches of Fagin's gang of pickpockets, the menacing Bill Sikes, and the doomed, tender-hearted Nancy — and dares you not to hold your breath until the very last page. Dickens's first great social novel is as gripping as a thriller and as furious as a pamphlet: still the sharpest indictment of a society that fails its children ever written. Discover — or rediscover — the original street kid.
