Oliver Twist, Vol. 1 (of 3)

The narrative follows a boy born in a parish workhouse whose mother dies shortly after his birth. He endures institutional neglect, callous officials, and harsh apprenticeship conditions before fleeing to a city where he is drawn into a group of juvenile thieves under the tutelage of a manipulative older criminal. Encounters with both cruelty and occasional kindness reveal questions of identity, social injustice, and the failures of poor relief, while episodes move between bleak realism, melodramatic incident, and satirical portraits of authority.