Product Description

One of Dickens's most haunting and bizarre novels, The Old Curiosity Shop is the story of `Little Nell' and her persecution by the grotesque and lecherous Quilp. This edition uses the Clarendon text, the definitive edition of the novels of Charles Dickens, and includes the original illustrations, five appendices of deleted passages, and details of Little Nell on stage.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #5682 in Books
• Published on: 1995-04-01
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 608 pages

Synopsis
This novel comes with an Introduction and Notes by Peter Preston, University of Nottingham and illustrations by Hablot K. Browne (Phiz) and George Cruickshank. "The Old Curiosity Shop" (1840-41), with its combination of the sentimental, the grotesque and the socially concerned, and its story of pursuit and courage, which sets the downtrodden and the plucky against the malevolent and the villainous, was an immediate popular success. Little Nell quickly became one of Dickens' most celebrated characters, who so captured the imagination of his readers that while the novel was being serialised, many of them wrote to him about her fate.

About the Author
Michael Slater is Professor of Victorian Literature at Birkbeck College in the University of London. He was editor of The Dickensian (1968-77) and President of the International Dickens Fellowship (1988-90). He has published many books and articles on Dickens.

Customer Reviews

A Good Read
I have just finished reading this book and I must say that I found it a little disjointed, although there were some real gems of characters in it - Swiveller, the Brasses, Quilp. That's why I've given it a 4 instead of a 3. The "good" characters were, as often in Dickens, rather boring and just too good to be true. Some things were left unsaid: for instance, how did Quilp's wife ever get to marry him!!!! There was a little note at the end that said her mother coerced her, but that part of the story might have been a lot better. All in all worth a read and, despite my criticisms, I wish I could write a fraction as good as Dickens!

Twee heroine but revel in the characters
The basic set up of this story may have pulled at Victorian heart stings but I thought it just silly : Nell, a young girl (12 I think) is brought into poverty by her uselss gambler of a grandfather and so decides they should both escape from the evil clutches of Quilp and run away to live as travellers in the countryside.

As is often the case in Dickens the good characters are dull and Nell is certainly this. Dull and niave the book drags when it's just her and her ga ga grandfather trapssing around the countryside. However, what saves the books is the great characters around them. Mrs Jaffery who runs the wax works, Richard Swiveller and the Marchioness, the noble, trustworthy Kit and of course the vile Quilp. Quilp is the star of the book, evil incarnate he steals every scene he's in. I'd love a really dark version of this story to be made for tv or the cinema.

The essence of Charles Dickens
This is the story of a little girl called Nell, who together with her grandfather, must run away from a succession of villains in an almost epic journey! You'll find everything here that you love about Charles Dickens: humour, satire, drama, unforgettable characters, laughter, and tears (I read somewhere that when Dickens read The Old Curiosity Shop at his public readings, the audience would actually burst into mass tears!) There are moments of heart-warming joy and moments of despair, and I think anyone with empathy and imagination will love this classic tale of good and evil.

A word of warning though: if you buy an edition with annotations, don't read them!! I made this fatal mistake, and was informed by a note in the middle of the novel about the fate of one of the main characters and what happens to the person at the end. What a spoiler! It ruined the whole pleasure of reading for me and I only managed to finish because the narrative was so lovely... if it had been any other novel I would surely not have bothered to go on to the end. Allow yourself the pleasure of reading this novel for its warmth and literary greatness - don't touch the notes.