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Fagin
fictional character
Fagin, fictional character, one of the villains in Charles Dickens’s novel Oliver Twist (1837–39) and one of the most notorious anti-Semitic portraits in English literature. Fagin is an old man in London who teaches young homeless boys how to be pickpockets and then fences their stolen goods. Although a miser and exploiter, he shows a certain loyalty and solicitude toward the boys. The Artful Dodger is one of Fagin’s thieves and, for a time, so is the young Oliver Twist. At the novel’s end, Fagin is executed for complicity in a murder. Vitagraph filmed the first (silent) adaptation of the ...(100 of 172 words)