Oliver Twist was a serialization in the monthly magazine Bentley’s Miscellany. In fact, Charles Dickens served as the magazine’s editor for some time. In his tenure, Dickens’ Oliver Twist reached close to 100,000 people over the course of its two year run. Dickens’ time at Bentley’s Miscellany was preceded by his success with the Pickwick Papers. It was in his days writing the Pickwick Papers that he was heralded “the most popular author of the day” (“Charles Dickens, 269). Magazines of the Victorian Age are symbolic of humanity’s growing literacy rates and of Western industrialization—paper and printing costs decreased to the point where the middle class could engage with them. Similarly, Bentley’s Miscellany reach with the burgeoning middle class informed a generation of people about society’s ill-treatment of the poor. Bentley’s Miscellany for the Victorian Age can be thought of as YouTube for today—both are the hub of entertainment for a broad population. 

Source: “Charles Dickens.” Encyclopædia Britannica, Encyclopedædia Britannica, 1994, pp. 269-270.