Charles Dickens

Oliver Twist illustrated Charles Dickens

the Parish Boy's Progress is Charles Dickens's second novel, and was published as a serial from 1837 to 1839 and released as a three-volume book in 1838, before the serialisation ended. The story centres on orphan Oliver Twist, born in a workhouse and sold into apprenticeship with an undertaker. He lives in a harshly run orphanage until being sold as an apprentice to a cruel undertaker. Oliver soon runs away and falls in with a gang of young pickpockets that is headed by slippery thief Fagin (played by Guinness), with the help of the brutal Bill Sikes (Robert Newton).