Which novel by Charles Dickens features the character Fagin?

Which novel by Charles Dickens features the character Fagin? The answer is Oliver Twist.

Fagin is the elderly criminal who leads a gang of child pickpockets in Dickens’s Oliver Twist. The orphan Oliver encounters Fagin after escaping the workhouse and arriving in London, where the Artful Dodger brings him into the gang’s orbit. Fagin trains children to steal and acts as a fence for stolen goods.

Oliver Twist was first published as a serial between 1837 and 1839 and appeared in book form in 1838. Its full title, Oliver Twist; or, The Parish Boy’s Progress, signals Dickens’s interest in poverty, workhouses, child exploitation, and the criminal underworld of Victorian London.

A common mix-up is confusing Fagin with Bill Sikes, another criminal in the novel. Sikes is a violent burglar, while Fagin organizes and profits from the children’s pickpocketing. Fagin’s portrayal has also been criticized for reinforcing antisemitic stereotypes, and Dickens later softened some of the novel’s explicitly Jewish references after receiving a protest from Eliza Davis.