by Charles Dickens

At age twelve, Charles Dickens worked in a shoe blacking factory apart from his family for reasons beyond his or their control. In the process, he met a working-class boy, an orphan named Bob Fagin, whose name Dickens would use for the villain in Oliver Twist. As a boy, Dickens dreamed of growing up to be an educated and distinguished man, but his dreams were troubled by fears that he might become permanently stationed among the poor, where he might be reduced to a life as a desperate robber or vagabond. These fears are reflected in the novel, for such a fate almost befalls young Oliver Twist.

Events in History at the Time of the Novel

The New Poor Law of 1834. Since the 1600s, England had worked to relieve the burdens faced by the poorest segment of its population through a system known...