Oliver Twist; or, The Parish Boy's Progress is the second novel by English author Charles Dickens, published by Richard Bentley in 1838. The story is about an orphan Oliver Twist, who endures a miserable existence in a workhouse and then is placed with an undertaker. He escapes and travels to London where he meets the Artful Dodger, leader of a gang of juvenile pickpockets. Oliver is led to the lair of their elderly criminal trainer Fagin, naively unaware of their unlawful activities.

Oliver Twist has been the subject of numerous film and television adaptations, and is the basis for a highly successful musical play, and the multiple Academy Award winning 1968 motion picture made from it -- directed by Carol Reed and starring Mark Lester and Ron Moody.

The book was originally published in Bentley's Miscellany as a serial, in monthly instalments that began appearing in the month of February 1837 and continued through April 1839. It was originally intended to form part of Dickens's serial The Mudfog Papers.[3][4][5] It did not appear as its own monthly serial until 1846. George Cruikshank provided one steel etching per month to illustrate each instalment.[6] The first novelization appeared six months before the serialization was completed. It was published in three volumes by Richard Bentley, the owner of Bentley's Miscellany, under the author's pseudonym, "Boz" and included 24 steel-engraved plates by Cruikshank.

The first edition was titled: Oliver Twist; or, The Parish Boy's Progress.