I could not help but to see a televised or staged version of Oliver Twist before I read the novel, but I was just as taken with the novel as I was with the films and stage versions that I had seen.

Dickens creates a very dark atmosphere and the whole novel is very gloomy and claustrophobic. The story is based around many of the saddest people in society and 'Oliver Twist' moves the reader in such a way that once you have read the book once, it remains with you forever and some of the images haunt you.