Oliver Twist (version 5 Dramatic Reading)

The most bracing portrait of childhood poverty in English literature. When nine-year-old Oliver Twist dares to ask for more gruel in the workhouse that orphaned him, he sets in motion a chain of events that will drag him through the darkest corners of Victorian London. Rescued from the workhouse by an undertaker who treats him as barely more than furniture, Oliver flees to the city streets where he falls in with the Artful Dodger and is inducted into Fagin's gang of child pickpockets. But even among thieves, Oliver's essential goodness refuses to be corrupted, a quality that makes him both beloved and in terrible danger, especially from the murderous Bill Sykes. Dickens wrote this novel to expose the brutal mathematics of poverty: how the system manufactured criminals by denying children dignity, food, and hope. The prose crackles with moral fury while telling a story that has gripped readers for nearly two centuries. This is for anyone who has ever felt trapped by circumstances beyond their control, who believes goodness can survive even in the most hostile environment.