Oliver Twist

A young woman found lying in the street gives birth to a baby boy in a workhouse, and for a while nobody is sure the child will live.

Oliver grows up hungry in Mrs. Mann’s care, and when he is brought back to the workhouse at nine, the starving boys choose him to ask the master for more food.

Oliver is kept locked up for asking for more, and the board agrees to pay a cruel chimney sweep, Mr. Gamfield, to take him as his apprentice.

Mr. Sowerberry, the parish undertaker, agrees to take Oliver, and Mr. Bumble walks the frightened, lonely boy to his new home at the coffin-maker’s shop.

At the undertaker’s, Oliver is bullied by the older charity boy Noah Claypole, and his master takes him to his first funeral, for a poor woman who starved to death.

Oliver walks at the front of children’s funerals as a little mourner and puts up with Noah’s bullying for months, until Noah insults his dead mother.

Noah brings Mr. Bumble to deal with Oliver, who is locked in the cellar after the fight, and after another beating Oliver decides to leave the town before dawn.

Oliver walks to London for seven hungry days, and in the town of Barnet a strange boy called Jack Dawkins offers to find him a place to stay.

In Fagin’s room, Oliver secretly sees the old man’s hidden box of watches and jewels and learns a strange game of taking things from pockets.

Oliver is finally allowed to go out with the Dodger and Charley Bates, and he soon finds out what their work really is.

Oliver is brought before Mr. Fang, a rude and unfair magistrate, while Mr. Brownlow, the man who was robbed, tries to speak for him.

Oliver is nursed through a long fever in Mr. Brownlow’s quiet house, where he cannot stop looking at the portrait of a beautiful lady.

Fagin is furious that Oliver has been caught, and he and the violent robber Bill Sikes send Nancy to the police station to find out what has happened to him.

Oliver is happy and safe at Mr. Brownlow’s, but his friend Mr. Grimwig doubts the boy, so Mr. Brownlow sends Oliver out alone with books and money to prove him wrong.

Fagin meets Bill Sikes and Nancy in a dark pub, while Oliver walks through Clerkenwell on his errand to the bookshop, not knowing how close they are.

Sikes and Nancy drag Oliver back to Fagin’s gang, who laugh at his new clothes and argue over Mr. Brownlow’s money, and Nancy stands up for the boy.

Back in Oliver’s home town, Mr. Bumble visits Mrs. Mann before travelling to London, and little Dick asks for his love to be sent to Oliver.

Mr. Brownlow offers a reward for news of Oliver, and Mr. Bumble hurries to Pentonville to tell him and Mr. Grimwig his own story of the boy’s life.

Fagin leaves Oliver locked up alone for days, and then the Dodger and Charley Bates try to persuade him that a thief’s life is the best one.

On a wet, windy night Fagin visits Bill Sikes and Nancy to plan a burglary at a house in Chertsey, for which Sikes needs a small boy.

Fagin warns Oliver to do whatever Bill Sikes tells him, and that night Nancy comes to take him to the robber’s house.

Before dawn on a rainy morning, Sikes leads Oliver on a long journey out of London, on foot and by cart, without telling him where they are going.

At a lonely house by the river, Sikes and Toby Crackit wait for the middle of the night and then take Oliver to the house they plan to rob.

On a snowy night at the workhouse, Mr. Bumble calls on Mrs. Corney, the matron, and stays for tea and a little romance.

Mrs. Corney is called to the bedside of old Sally, a dying pauper who wants to tell her a secret about a young woman who once died in the workhouse.

Back in London, Fagin’s boys are playing cards when Toby Crackit arrives, tired and hungry, with news of the burglary.

Fagin hurries through London looking for Sikes, frightens Nancy with an angry outburst, and late at night meets a mysterious man called Monks.

While Mrs. Corney is away, Mr. Bumble looks through her things, and when she comes back badly shaken, he asks her to marry him.

Sikes and Toby run from the men chasing them, and the wounded Oliver lies alone in a ditch until morning, then struggles across the fields to find help.

Mrs. Maylie and her niece Rose are at breakfast when Dr. Losberne arrives to treat the wounded burglar upstairs.

Mrs. Maylie and Rose find a sick child instead of a burglar, and Dr. Losberne plans how to save Oliver from prison.

Two officers from Bow Street in London arrive to investigate the burglary, and Dr. Losberne tries hard to keep them from blaming Oliver.

As Oliver recovers from his wound and fever, Dr. Losberne takes him to London to find Mr. Brownlow, and on the way Oliver recognizes the house where the robbers took him.

When Rose suddenly falls dangerously ill, Oliver runs to the market town to send for Dr. Losberne and has a strange meeting with a man at the inn.

Mrs. Maylie’s son Harry arrives full of worry about Rose, and Oliver spends happy summer days with him until one evening he falls asleep over his books.

Harry and the others search the fields for the men Oliver saw at the window, and later Harry finally tells Rose that he loves her.

Harry Maylie suddenly decides to leave with the doctor, and before he goes he asks Oliver for a secret favour.

Mr. Bumble, now married to Mrs. Corney and Master of the workhouse, finds out who is really in charge, then meets a dark stranger in a pub who wants to know about Oliver’s birth.

On a stormy night, Mr. and Mrs. Bumble meet Monks in a ruined building by the river, where Mrs. Bumble sells him what she knows about Oliver’s mother.

Fagin visits a sick and bad-tempered Sikes, and Nancy overhears something at Fagin’s house that sends her on a dangerous journey across London at night.

Nancy meets Rose Maylie in secret and, at great risk to herself, tells her what she has heard about Monks and Oliver.

Rose cannot decide whom to trust with Nancy’s secret, until Oliver rushes in, out of breath, with news about an old friend.

Noah Claypole and Charlotte run away to London with stolen money, and at the Three Cripples they meet a man who offers Noah a new career.

Noah, now calling himself Morris Bolter, learns Fagin’s rules and is sent in disguise to the police court, where the Artful Dodger faces the magistrates.

When Sunday night comes, Nancy desperately tries to slip out to keep her promise to Rose, and her strange behaviour makes Fagin suspicious.

Fagin hires Noah to follow a young woman from the gang in secret, and after many nights of waiting the chance finally comes.

Nancy meets Rose and Mr. Brownlow at midnight on London Bridge, not knowing that someone is listening in the shadows.

Fagin, wild with anger, waits up through the night for Sikes so that Noah can tell him what he heard on the bridge.

Sikes flees London with his dog and wanders through fields and villages, but he cannot escape what he has done.

Mr. Brownlow has Monks brought to his house by force and makes him listen to what he has learned about Monks’s family and Oliver.

While all of London hunts for the murderer, what is left of the gang hides in a ruined house on Jacob’s Island, and an unexpected visitor arrives.

In Oliver’s home town, Monks has to repeat his confession in front of Oliver and his friends, and old family secrets finally come out.

Fagin stands trial in a crowded courtroom, and Mr. Brownlow and Oliver later visit him in Newgate prison with one last question.

The narrator tells what becomes of Oliver, his friends and the people who did them harm.