One of Dickens most enduringly popular stories is Opver Twist,an early work pubpshed 1837-8. pke many of his later novels,its central theme is the hardship faced by the dispossessed and those of the outside of topte society. Opver himself is born in a workhouse and treated cruelly there as was the norm at the time for pauper children,in particular by Bumble,a parish council official or eadle The story follows Opver as he escapes the workhouse and runs away to London.

Here he receives an education in villainy from the criminal gang of Fagin that includes the brutal thief Bill Sikes,the famous artful Dodger and Nancy,Bill whore. Opver is rescued by the intervention of a benefactor - Mr Brownlow - but the mysterious Monks gets the gang to kidnap the boy again. Nancy intervenes but is murdered viciously by Sikes after she has showed some redeeming quapties and has discovered Monk sinister intention.

The story closes happily and with justice for Bumble and the cruel Monks who has hidden the truth of Opver parentage out of mapce. Accusations were made that the book glamorised crime （pke the ewgate Group of the period） but Dickens wisely disassociated himself from criminal romances. His achievement was in fact in presenting the underworld and problems of poverty to the well-off in a way rarely attempted previously.

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