Oliver Twist Trivia
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55 free Oliver Twist trivia questions with answers — literature quiz, new questions added Sep 2026.
This Oliver Twist trivia quiz begins in the workhouse with the bowl of gruel and ends in Newgate. The story questions cover Mr Bumble and the undertaker, Noah Claypole, the Artful Dodger's real name, Fagin's toasting fork, the stolen handkerchief, Magistrate Fang, the botched burglary, Monks and the locket, Nancy's secret meetings, the death of Sikes on the rooftops and what becomes of Oliver, Rose Maylie and the Bumbles. Then it turns to the book itself: the magazine that serialised it, Cruikshank's plates, the pen name Boz, the Poor Laws, the real criminal behind Fagin and the antisemitism argument that has followed the character since Dickens's lifetime. The last stretch covers the adaptations: Alec Guinness and the 1948 film's American ban, Lionel Bart's Oliver!, Davy Jones and the Beatles on Ed Sullivan, Carol Reed's Best Picture winner, Ron Moody, Jack Wild, Oliver Reed, Disney's kitten and Ben Kingsley. Every answer has been checked against the Wikipedia articles on the novel, its characters and its adaptations, and each explanation adds one detail worth passing on. BrainPickle also has separate quizzes on Great Expectations and on Charles Dickens himself.
30 of 55 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Oliver Twist was which of Charles Dickens's novels?
His second
His second: Dickens began Oliver Twist while The Pickwick Papers was still coming out in monthly parts, so for months he was writing both at once.
Q 02What was the alternative title of Dickens's novel Oliver Twist?
The Parish Boy's Progress
The Parish Boy's Progress: as a parish orphan, Oliver is raised by Mrs Mann, who pockets most of the allowance meant to feed the children.
Q 03In which magazine was Oliver Twist serialised in monthly instalments?
Bentley's Miscellany
Bentley's Miscellany was edited by Dickens himself when Oliver Twist began there, until he quarrelled with its owner Richard Bentley and resigned.
Q 04Which artist provided one steel etching for each monthly instalment of Oliver Twist?
George Cruikshank
George Cruikshank later claimed in The Times that he had come up with the story, a claim Dickens's biographer John Forster dismissed as a 'silly story'.
Q 05Under what pseudonym was Oliver Twist first published?
Boz
Boz, Dickens said, came from his nickname for his little brother Augustus, 'Moses', which said through the nose became 'Boses', then 'Boz'.
Q 06What punishment does the workhouse board give Oliver Twist after the uproar at supper?
Solitary confinement and flogging
Solitary confinement and flogging: he is locked in a dark room for a week, and the board offers five pounds to anyone who will take him off their hands.
Q 07What does Oliver famously ask the workhouse master for?
More gruel
More gruel: the starving boys cast lots over who should walk up after supper and ask for more, and the lot fell to Oliver.
Q 08Which pompous beadle names Oliver Twist and later marries the workhouse matron, Mrs Corney?
Mr Bumble
Mr Bumble loses his post once his wife's secret dealings come out, and the couple end up as paupers in the very workhouse they once ran.
Q 09To what trade is Oliver apprenticed after leaving the workhouse?
Undertaking
Undertaking: Mr Sowerberry decides the boy's melancholy face will make him a perfect mute, a hired mourner at children's funerals.
Q 10When Nancy goes hunting for Oliver at the police office, who does she pretend to be?
His sister
His sister: she rehearses weeping for her 'sweet, innocent little brother' while Fagin's gang cheer, then plays the part at the police office.
Q 11What is the real name of the Artful Dodger?
Jack Dawkins
Jack Dawkins swaggers through his court hearing, demanding his rights as an Englishman, and is committed for trial, presumably facing transportation to Australia.
Q 12What does Fagin train orphan boys to be?
Pickpockets
Pickpockets: his name even entered dictionaries as 'fagin', meaning a person who teaches crime to others.
Q 13Whose handkerchief is stolen in the theft that gets Oliver arrested?
Mr Brownlow's
Mr Brownlow's kindness wins out: he takes the accused boy home and is struck by how closely Oliver resembles a portrait on his wall.
Q 21Who follows Nancy on Fagin's orders and reports her secret meetings?
Noah Claypole
Noah Claypole, now calling himself Morris Bolter, spies on Nancy for Fagin, who twists the report so Sikes believes she betrayed him.
Q 22How does Bill Sikes die in Dickens's novel Oliver Twist?
Accidentally hanged by his own rope
Accidentally hanged by his own rope: fleeing over the rooftops, Sikes screams 'The eyes again!', loses his balance, and the noose tightens as he falls.
Q 23The young woman living in the house Sikes tries to burgle turns out to be what relation to Oliver?
His maternal aunt
Q 14Before which police magistrate is Oliver Twist hauled after being wrongly accused of theft?
Mr Fang
Mr Fang has just sentenced Oliver to three months' hard labour when the bookstall keeper bursts in and swears another boy did it.
Q 15Dickens named Fagin after a boy who was very good to him when, aged 12, he worked in what?
A blacking warehouse
A blacking warehouse: with his father in a debtors' prison, Charles pasted labels on pots of boot blacking, and Bob Fagin looked after him when he fell ill.
Q 16What is the name of Bill Sikes's dog in Oliver Twist?
Bull's-eye
Bull's-eye: fearing any description of him will mention the dog, Sikes tries to drown it, but the dog slips away.
Q 17What goes wrong during the burglary Fagin forces Oliver to join?
He is shot and wounded
He is shot and wounded by the servants, and the burglars leave him in a ditch; he staggers back and is taken in by the family he came to rob.
Q 18Which mysterious man plots with Fagin to keep Oliver from learning his parentage?
Monks
Monks turns out to be Oliver's half-brother, scheming to steal his inheritance; he squanders his share in the New World and dies in prison.
Q 19Which belongings of Oliver's mother are dropped into a river to hide who he is?
A ring and a medallion
A ring and a medallion: the pauper nurse who attended Oliver's dying mother stole them, and the workhouse matron later sold them on.
Q 20To whom does Nancy secretly pass information to help Oliver?
Rose Maylie
Rose Maylie begs Nancy to leave the thieves, insisting it is never too late to atone, but Nancy refuses to abandon the man she loves.
His maternal aunt: orphaned as a small child, she was raised by cottagers and slandered as illegitimate until a kindly elderly lady took her in.
Q 24Where do Oliver and his protector visit Fagin the day before his execution?
Newgate Prison
Newgate Prison: in the condemned cell, the raving Fagin still reveals the chimney hiding place of the papers that prove Oliver's identity.
Q 25Appalled by Sikes's crime, how does Fagin's boy Charley Bates end up in Oliver Twist?
He becomes a farmer
He becomes a farmer: after struggling as a farmer's drudge and a carrier's lad, he ends up the merriest young grazier in all Northamptonshire.
Q 26Which harsh 1834 legislation is Oliver Twist's chief political target?
The new Poor Laws
Under the new Poor Laws, workhouses were meant to be harsh enough to deter all but the desperate, and Dickens mocks the thin diets they served.
Q 27Which real orphan's account of child labour in a cotton mill may have inspired Oliver Twist?
Robert Blincoe
Robert Blincoe, an orphan in the St Pancras workhouse, was one of about 80 children it sent north at seven to work as 'apprentices'.
Q 28What object is Fagin holding when he first appears in Oliver Twist?
A toasting fork
A toasting fork: he is frying sausages over the fire when the Artful Dodger brings Oliver into the den for the first time.
Q 29Where does Nancy promise to walk every Sunday night, in case Oliver's protectors want to talk to her?
London Bridge
London Bridge: when she keeps a midnight meeting on its steps, a spy sent by Fagin is hiding nearby and hears every word.
Q 30What small stolen item finally gets the Artful Dodger arrested?
A silver snuff box
A silver snuff box: Charley Bates is mortified that the gang's cleverest thief should be transported over such a common trifle.