English · Advanced
Read Oliver Twist in Englishwith every sentence explained
Charles Dickens · 1838
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About the book
Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens was first published in 1838. In Passage you read the full text in the original English, marked advanced and filed under historical fiction and mystery and crime. It runs to about 156,300 words.
"Please, sir, I want some more." With those words, one hungry orphan changes his fate.
Oliver Twist is born in a workhouse, and his mother dies the moment he arrives. He grows up cold, hungry and unloved, and when he dares to ask for a second bowl of thin porridge, he is treated like a criminal. Sold as an apprentice to an undertaker and bullied without mercy, he finally runs away to London.
There he meets the Artful Dodger, a cheerful young pickpocket in a man's coat, who takes him to the den of Fagin, an old criminal who trains boys to steal. Innocent Oliver has no idea what kind of family he has joined, or how dangerous it will be to escape it, especially with the violent Bill Sikes nearby.
Charles Dickens's second novel attacked the cruelty of Victorian poverty with anger and humour. It became the musical Oliver! and has been adapted for the screen many times.
- Author
- Charles Dickens
- First published
- 1838
- Language
- English
- Level
- Advanced
- Genre
- Historical Fiction, Mystery and Crime
- Length
- About 156,300 words
How it opens
Among other public buildings in a certain town, which for many reasons it will be prudent to refrain from mentioning, and to which I will assign no fictitious name, there is one anciently common to most towns, great or small: to wit, a workhouse; and in this workhouse was born; on a day and date which I need not trouble myself to repeat, inasmuch as it can be of no possible consequence to the reader, in this stage of the business at all events; the item of mortality whose name is prefixed to the head of this chapter.
Reading Oliver Twist in Passage
Passage sets the book as a quiet, paginated reader in English. Read at your own pace, and when a sentence stops you, tap it. You get:
- a natural translation of that exact sentence,
- a short note on the grammar, in plain words,
- the key words, which you can save with the sentence they came from,
- all of it in English, Spanish, French, German, Italian, Turkish or Portuguese, whichever you read best.
It's marked advanced, with richer vocabulary and longer sentences. If it feels heavy, start with an intermediate English book and come back to it. The words you save come back later in short review games, so the book keeps teaching after you close it.
