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Oliver Twist is the classic tale of a young orphan by Charles Dickens. Summary of the Book Oliver Twist's life starts with misfortune. Orphaned at birth by the death of his mother, he is cared for under the terms of Mrs. Mann at a baby farm for the first nine years of his life. Then he begins working by picking and weaving oakum at the main workhouse by the parish beadle, Mr. Bumble. After the other children convince him, Oliver asks for more food, leading to utter chaos in the workhouse. The board in charge of the workhouse decide to put him up for apprenticeship, offering five pounds as a reward for any man who can take him. Thus Oliver finds himself the apprentice of an undertaker. Although his master is kind, the master’s wife begins to mistreat Oliver, forcing him to run away. He journeys to London and thus runs into some of the most colorful characters every created in fiction: the Artful Dodger and Fagin, a notorious Jewish criminal who decides that Oliver would make a wonderful part of his band of pickpockets. About Charles Dickens Charles Dickens was an English novelist, short story writer and social critic. He is best remembered for his prolific writing, and especially the novels David Copperfield, A Christmas Carol and The Pickwick Papers. Considered the literary juggernaut of his age, Dickens constantly portrayed the poor and orphaned in his novels and stories, and touched upon the poor living situations which were rampant in those days. Oliver Twist has been adapted into several movies over the years, most recently by Roman Polanski starring  Barney Clark, Ben Kingsley and Jeremy Swift. It was also loosely adapted into a movie about a young orphan’s gift for music, August Rush.