‘The Old Curiosity Shop’ is one of Charles Dickens’ most popular and beloved novels. It caused such a sensation when it was first serialized that when the ship bearing the final installment of the book arrived in New York, people actually stormed the wharf to be the first to hear the conclusion to the story.
The plot follows the life of Nell Trent – known as ‘Little Nell’ – an orphan who lives with her grandfather in London. Together they run the eponymous shop filled with odds and ends, but Nell’s is a lonely life and her only friend is young Kit, a young employee of the store whom Nell is teaching to read and write. When her grandfather, who has been attempting to become wealthy through gambling – becomes mired in debt, the shop is taken over by the evil, deformed moneylender Daniel Quilip, who evicts Nell and her grandfather, causing them to flee into the country to live as beggars.
At times a heartfelt and beautiful tale of love and filial devotion and at others a pulse-pounding drama of greed and malevolence, ‘The Old Curiosity Shop’ is often listed by Dickens’ fans as among their favorites of his works and it is presented here in its original and unabridged format.
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Charles Dickens was born February 7, 1812 in Landport, Portsmouth, the second of eight children to John and Elizabeth Dickens. Dickens’ father had great difficulty managing his affairs and was often under the burden of crushing debt, which culminated in his imprisonment in Marshalsea debtor’s prison in 1824. As a result, Dickens was forced to leave school and begin work at a boot-blacking factory to assist in getting the family out of debt, an experience that would allow Dickens to sympathize with the plight of the poor and destitute that would last his entire life. Dickens took to writing immediately and, in 1833, he published his first story: A Dinner at Popular Walk in Monthly Magazine. The following year, he began writing under the pseudonym Boz and released a collection of short stories entitled Sketches by Boz in 1836. That same year he married Catherine Hogarth, daughter of the editor of the Evening Chronicle. They had 10 children before they separated in 1858. From 1836 to 1837, Dickens serialized what would become the novel The Pickwick Papers, which was an immediate sensation and became one of his most popular works, released in book form in 1837. Encouraged by this success, Dickens began writing at a furious and astonishing rate, producing (in serial form) some of his most favorite novels: Oliver Twist (1837-39), Nicholas Nickleby (1838-39), as well as The Old Curiosity Shop and Barnaby Rudge (1840-41). After that, Dickens barely paused for the rest of his career. He would regularly release a book ever year or so for the next two decades, including American Notes, his five Christmas Books (including, of course, A Christmas Carol), David Copperfield, Bleak House, A Tale of Two Cities, and Great Expectations. Charles Dickens suffered a stroke on June 9, 1870 at died at Gad’s Hill. Buried in the Poets’ Corner of Westminster Abbey.
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