Set in London's backstreet slums, Oliver Twist is the story of a workhouse orphan captured and thrust into a den of thieves, where some of Dickens's most depraved villains preside: the incorrigible Artful Dodger, the barbarous bully Bill Sikes, and the terrible Fagin, whose knavery threatens to send them all to the gallows. Dickens depicts London's impoverished underworld, and illustrates his belief that poverty leads to crime. At the heart of the drama, however, is Oliver, the orphan whose unsullied goodness leads him to salvation and who represents Dickens's belief in the principle of good triumphing at last.
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