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The Old Curiosity Shop

by Charles Dickens, Norman Page (Editor)

3.66 of 5 stars 3.66 · rating details · 5,471 ratings · 404 reviews

The sensational bestselling story of Little Nell, the beautiful child thrown into a shadowy, terrifying world, seems to belong less to the history of the Victorian novel than to folklore, fairy tale, or myth. The sorrows of Nell and her grandfather are offset by Dickens's creation of a dazzling contemporary world inhabited by some of his most brilliantly drawn characters-t...more

Paperback, 576 pages

Published July 1st 2001 by Penguin Classics (first published 1840)

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Jun 27, 2007 Brad rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: novel

Another masterful confection of pathos and comic genius, this time featuring such characters as the slacker Dick Swiveler and the cruel Daniel Quilp.

My generic comment about Charles Dickens:
First of all, although I am a partisan of Dickens' writing and have read and relished most his works, I concede to three flaws in his oeuvre that are not insignificant. First, while he seemed to develop an almost endless variety of male social types, his female characters are much less well developed. Second,...more

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Oct 10, 2010 Lisa rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: fiction-uk-19th-century

The book itself is okay--(a young girl and her grandfather flee London to escape an evil creditor)--but for me the real fun was reading a story that people got so excited about over 150 years ago. According to Wikipedia, "In 2007, many newspapers claimed the excitement at the release of the last volume of 'The Old Curiosity Shop' was the only historical comparison that could be made to the excitement at the release of the last Harry Potter novel .... Dickens fans were reported to storm the piers...more

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Jul 16, 2009 Ayu Palar rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: classics, dickens, favorites-ever

More than a century ago, people were waiting on the docks at New York to ask a question to passengers from England ‘Is Nell dead?’. So influential Old Curiosity Shop to those readers’ lives! And how Little Nell has stolen many readers’ hearts! I adore the novel so much and I do think that Little Nell’s life is tragic, yet I didn’t shed any tear when I closed the last page of the book. There are other elements of the book that attract me more, especially the rich description that successfully bui...more More than a century ago, people were waiting on the docks at New York to ask a question to passengers from England ‘Is Nell dead?’. So influential Old Curiosity Shop to those readers’ lives! And how Little Nell has stolen many readers’ hearts! I adore the novel so much and I do think that Little Nell’s life is tragic, yet I didn’t shed any tear when I closed the last page of the book. There are other elements of the book that attract me more, especially the rich description that successfully builds the grim atmosphere of the book.

The energy of Old Curiosity Shop does not lie on Nell, yet on the villain Daniel Quilp. Quilp is one of the best characters ever made by Dickens. Not because he’s handsome and super nice, but because he’s ugly and evil. From his appearance, Dickens descibed Quilp as ‘inhuman’ , and thanks to the illustrators, we just wish we won’t meet someone like Quilp on the dark street at midnight! Not only his ugly looks, Quilp is also scary due to his awkward acts:

... for he ate hard eggs, shell and all, devoured gigantic prawns with the heads and tails on, chewed tobacco and water-cresses at the same time and with extraordinary greediness, drank boiling tea without winking, bit his fork and spoon until they bent again ... (p. 39)

Yeah, that’s Mr. Quilp. He rarely talks, he just growls, chuckles and squeals. We do not have to know why he acts like that. He is pure evil and that’s what’s weirdly interesting from him. I also sense Quilp being sexually attracted to Nell (who is 13 years old, is he Humbert-Humbert prototype?). He adores Nell’s beauty and even directly says to Nell she should be Mrs. Quilp number two! I shivered when I read he flirted at Nell. But oddly, it is Quilp that truly gripped me. Every time he appears, I couldn’t wait to know what he’s gonna do next.

Another character that I think is also Dickens’ finest creation is Richard Swiveller. At first, he seems to be a flamboyant young person and is soon going to be the stupid character in the book due to his flowery phrases and quotations here and there. One scene of Mr. Swiveller that I like is when he meets Miss Brass for the first time. It is hilarious and proves the witty humour of Dickens (chapter 33). Yet as the story goes, Mr. Swiveller grows into a young man with a golden heart. Because of him, all matters are solved. The world needs more of Mr. Swiveller. He saves the day and as important as that, he brings fun and joy to us!

The struggle to get a copy of Old Curiosity Shop wasn’t an easy one (ask Sherien), and thank God I got it because reading it was a truly pleasant experience. It took me around two weeks to finally finish the novel since I wanted to read every line carefully. I wanted to enjoy the rich description of the book, and yes I did. However, no matter how big my love to Old Curiosity Shop , I still have to be objective. I was about to give it five stars yet there are a thing from the plot that kinda annoys me. Actually the plot walks in the right straight path, but then the character of Fred Trent (Nell’s brother) is quite useless. The conflict could have been more interestingly complex if Dickens explored his character more. But then, the main question is: is the novel worth reading? Absolutely.
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Mar 30, 2012 Debbie rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This is a wonderfully enjoyable book. The classic Dickens formula is put to work: good vs. evil, hardship, the sad reality of real life, the journey, the secret, the bittersweet happy ending. All this equation performed amongst a myriad of extremely colorful characters and scenes so pictographic in description and prose that the landscape seems to pop up out of the book and play out in animation before the eyes. Dickens has such a way with his characters. They are always to the extreme. When the...more This is a wonderfully enjoyable book. The classic Dickens formula is put to work: good vs. evil, hardship, the sad reality of real life, the journey, the secret, the bittersweet happy ending. All this equation performed amongst a myriad of extremely colorful characters and scenes so pictographic in description and prose that the landscape seems to pop up out of the book and play out in animation before the eyes. Dickens has such a way with his characters. They are always to the extreme. When they are good, they are syrup sticky good. When they are evil, they are the devil himself. When they are ridiculous, which quite a few are, you find Dickens is the real original classical king of comedy.
In 10th grade “The Old Curiosity Shop” was on the list of classical reading for the second semester at my school. Everyone said, when you get to Mr.___’s class you will love reading, “The Old Curiosity Shop”. Imagine my surprise when it was my turn with the famed Mr.____ and he decided we should read Tolstoy. Through the years I sort of forgot about its existence until I saw PBS Masterpiece theater was airing a movie version. I thought, great I will DVR it, read the book and compare. I read the book with excitement and enjoyment always with the movie as the reward in the end on my mind. I figuratively became the director and cast my favorite British actors as the infamous characters. I imagined the action and the comedy. In my mind’s eye, I saw the competed film and it was wonderful. Comical! I couldn’t understand why it had taken me so long to read this book. Upon finishing the book, I rushed to sit and watch this PBS Masterpiece. The host introduced it. The introduction proceeded. A scene came up, people moved and spoke. I stopped the player and rewound it to make sure I was watching the correct film? It was, to my extreme dismay, absolutely nothing like the Dickens masterpiece. I think it actually was a mockery and disservice. If I was Dickens I’d roll over. If I was an actor and given that script, I’d thrust it back into the hands previously given this horrible farce of an object and say in my best British accent, “No, Sir! I most certainly will not do any such thing!” Grandfather was not a feeble addict. Nell wasn’t an angel lead by the love of a delirious old fool. Swiveller (my favorite character) looked like a Jack Sparrow reject and he was not nearly as drunk or ridiculous as written to be. Sally was thoughtful? What? Brass was not as sniveling. Kit was weak and missing his big honest heart. Mrs. Quilp was not pathetic and Quilp himself was not as evil, small or demonish. Also, a whole gang of other interesting and vital characters and adventures were lost, I assume to the cutting room floor. How dare they? How very dare they make a mockery and sad display of such a masterpiece of great literature. I thought the purpose of film was to convey stories in the book into a visual representation from the words, through the mind’s eye, into a real touchable world.
In this case, Dickens needs no modern day distortion. He has conveyed without mistake, without any of our new fangled devices, with only his pen a picture and experience single handedly.
I don’t regret the movie, only because it motivated me to read this wonderful book that I had quite forgotten about. This is a must read for a lifetime. I enjoyed every moment. Do give yourself time to stop and revel in the experience of it. Five Stars!
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Apr 28, 2011 Jeanette rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: all-fiction, classics, europe-and-british-isles

"...and so do things pass away, like a tale that is told."

When I started this novel I got all excited, thinking it might be even better than Great Expectations, my favorite Dickens novel to date. What always happens to me with Charles Dickens, though, is that my interest starts to fade about 2/3 of the way through the book. He has many sub-plots going all at once, and he abandons some of them for so long in order to focus on just one. Often the one he favors is the one I'm least interested in,...more

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Oct 16, 2011 Chris rated it 3 of 5 stars

Reading this strengthened my opinion that Charles Dickens was a genius at creating memorable characters, but not so skilled at creating plots. Who could ever forget the devilish dwarf Mr. Quilp, the brother and sister lawyers Samson and Sarah Brass, and the kind-hearted rogue Dick Swiveller. The curious thing about the Old Curiosity Shop is that the namesake venue ceases to be location of the story very early on, and the so-called main character Nell is not half as memorable as her supporting ca...more

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Jul 02, 2011 Duntay rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I am quite worried by this insipid-looking woman on the cover...

So far my favourite character is Whiskers the pony. I'm not sure if that bodes well.

I confess: I abandoned Little Nell. In a drawer, in a B&B in Tobermory. I did however finish the book, after lugging it about since March. I'm afraid my initial reservations were confirmed: Nell was insipid, and Whiskers the pony was ace. Especially as it is reported that his final act was to kick his doctor in his last illness. The doctor is nev...more

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Mar 20, 2012 Charly rated it 4 of 5 stars Recommends it for: Anyone, especially Dickens fans

Although this is one of Dickens' earlier works I am not sure it is as well known as some others. This was a bit atypical of him in one sense, in that he ties things up in the end a bit differently than in some of his books. Can't go beyond that without a spoiler. I suggest not reading the introduction before the piece if you have this edition.

As always his wit, humor, and masterful twists come into play as well as his wonderfully weird characters

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May 06, 2008 Jennifer rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: read-2008, classics

As good as Charles Dickens gets - the most evil of his evil villains, Quilp, is delightfully horrible, and as always, gets what he deserves in the end. The death of Little Nell is surprising, and it's always funny back then when people are dying and there's no real reason given, they just waste away...did they really not know why people died, like diseases? I guess it was quite a long time ago. Anyway, I liked it, as I always do Dickens books.

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Jun 18, 2012 Brian Robbins rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This was another CD version to make driving more fun, and at 18 discs it promised hours and many miles of fun driving. We even had to go on a short driving holiday just to finish it!

Anton Lesser reads Dickens extremely well, even if his elderly women (thinking more of his reading of Pickwick Papers here) tend to become impersonations of Dame Edith Evans at her most theatrical. In this production his Quilp was outstanding.

I last read the book in 1987 and thoroughly enjoyed it. Returning to it was...more This was another CD version to make driving more fun, and at 18 discs it promised hours and many miles of fun driving. We even had to go on a short driving holiday just to finish it!

Anton Lesser reads Dickens extremely well, even if his elderly women (thinking more of his reading of Pickwick Papers here) tend to become impersonations of Dame Edith Evans at her most theatrical. In this production his Quilp was outstanding.

I last read the book in 1987 and thoroughly enjoyed it. Returning to it was an interesting experience. The parts of the plot that creaked badly – mainly those which featured Little Nell - were more apparent and irritating. The dreadfully sentimental sections, particularly involving the “Poor Schoolmaster” and the death of his favourite pupil, and then later when he became the saviour of Nell and her grandfather with their subsequent life in the old house by the church, are very tedious, and at times sick-making. However, it had great strengths too.

The journey structure of the story, a kind of latter-day ‘Pilgrim’s Progress’, passing through a rich variety of settings and characters worked very well, particularly in terms of the social observations and criticisms. The section dealing with the iron-works was especially powerful.

As always with Dickens there was a rich array of memorable characters. Simply taking those who pop immediately to mind Dick Swiveller and the Very Small Servant, Kit and the Garlands – including their very colourful pony, the Brasses are delightfully vivid. Of them, the gradually reformed Swiveller is particularly entertaining and perhaps the most 3D character to be found in the novel.

Dickens is often represented as writer who produces only 2D characters who have little relation to real people with their complex inner lives and motivations. There is a strong element of truth in this and for good reason; however there are sections of this novel where Dickens provides great insight into personality on a more subtle level. For instance the section dealing with the Grandfather’s gambling addiction and theft of money to fuel it, his denial of the problem and disconnection from reality, provide a powerful insight into the addictive personality.

This however is not one of the most important aspects of Dickens art as a writer. To judge his characters against more modern demands for psychological reality is to do him a great injustice, and to miss the nature and chief enjoyments of his writing. If any proof of this is needed, one just has to focus on the most outstanding feature of the book – Quilp. Quilp is pure malice on legs (among many other things he uses severe physically violence against adolescents, uses lies, fraud and threats of physical violence to manipulate others, and abuses his wife with the most extreme psychological means). Yet Dickens manages to make him, despite his horrendous deeds, into the chief entertainment of the novel. His passing is much more a matter for regret than the passing of Little Nell. Dickens achieves this by the very unreality of the character. He brings the vividness and colour of Mr Punch from the puppet booth straight onto the much bigger stage of his novel.

As always with Dickens, whatever the weaknesses in Old Curiosity Shop, as in any of his novels, the strengths and entertainment value always far outweigh the flaws.
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Feb 13, 2013 Dennis rated it 2 of 5 stars

This was my least favorite Dickens novel as in his eagerness to please a newspaper audience, he really laid on the maudlinness and anti-semitism to a point where it became ridiculous. Is any child as good and pure as Nell? Is any Jewish dwarf so evil as Quilp? What about Jews of normal stature or agnostic dwarves? It was laid on a bit thick but I forgive Charles because he wrote so many other much better books.

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May 26, 2012 Mary rated it 4 of 5 stars

I read this for a book club, would not have read it on my own, and in fact I found it a lot more engaging than I expected. Not surprising that this was written to be serialized, and a lot of it is very formulaic. I find that I am reminded of the little girl with a curl right in the middle of her forehead – when she was good she was very very good, and when she was bad she was horrid. The very very good here is Nell, who is so good that she is described as an angel, and apparently is too good to...more I read this for a book club, would not have read it on my own, and in fact I found it a lot more engaging than I expected. Not surprising that this was written to be serialized, and a lot of it is very formulaic. I find that I am reminded of the little girl with a curl right in the middle of her forehead – when she was good she was very very good, and when she was bad she was horrid. The very very good here is Nell, who is so good that she is described as an angel, and apparently is too good to not be with them always. Yes, you need the insulin for these scenes! Also very good is Kit, devoted to Nell, to Barbara (although a little too dense to see that Barbara is jealous of the devotion to Nell), and to his mother – more on her later. The horrid is Daniel Quilp, the dreadful dwarf, just mean and nasty through and through. It seems likely that he would be eponymous for this type of behavior (memorialized like Scrooge or Shylock, for instance) if he had not been a dwarf, as nowadays it would be politically incorrect to select out someone as evil based on their physical stature.

Some more characters are fair to middling, particularly Richard, who is also pretty dense but who has a kind streak to take care of the little servant girl, also to provide Kit with victuals while he is in prison. Mrs.Quilp and her neighbors, also the performers, add a bit more variety and texture. I particularly liked Tom Scott, Quilp’s servant boy, who is perennially walking on his hands.

Several of the characters just play the role, and seem to be bound in time and space. Kit’s mother is chief among these, a widow (just when was she widowed? Cannot have been too long ago, because there is a baby); the baby we know is a boy, but otherwise is unnamed, and seems destined to never age.

The particular saving grace of this book, and of Dickens in general in addition to character types, are some imaginative, humorous turns of phrase. Richard Swiveller says that “love-making, yes, promising, no” has been going on with Sophie Wackles; Richard does not know enough to make up a story about the means of the new lodger, so Brass opines that “you’ve mistaken your calling, and will never make a lawyer;” in the Brasses’ parlor room includes a “treacherous old chair by the fire-place, whose withered arms had hugged full many a client and helped to squeeze him dry.”

The sheer naiveté of Nell and some of the others becomes fun. Nell is “very much surprised that (George, driver for Mrs. Jarley, the waxworks woman) should be so accurately acquainted with the weight of one whom she had read about in books as having lived considerably before their time” when George compares her and her grandfather’s weight together to being “a trifle under that of Oliver Cromwell,” and the illiterate Mrs. Jarley barely seems to be aware of what is written on her caravan, promoting the waxworks show. All of this certainly presages Dorothy encountering Professor Marvel.

Other items that reminded me of other authors included the description of Nell and the grandfather walking out of the industrial city and ugly countryside around it – shades of Orwell’s Road to Wigan Pier; also the description of the old well in Chapter 53 was downright Chekovian, in that I thought that the final scene of the book would be rescuing Nell from the well (equivalent to the gun in Act 1 being used to shoot someone in the final act), so I was a bit surprised that the well did not reappear.

The man who tends the furnace is a curious character, and he is last seen reading “new histories in his furnace fire”, which is a strong image. The little servant girl, dubbed the Marchioness by Richard, is also another what-if character, a doppelganger for Nell, what Nell would have been if she had not grown up loved by her grandfather and others, and later leading the life that Nell might have led if she had lived.

Finally, the picture of Victorian England emerges well, although arguably Dickens is one of our greatest sources of impression of what the era was like. There are some small details, such as the fact that Kit, as a first offender, is kept apart from other prisoners, on the theory that he could still turn around, progressive thinking for the day. There is also a tremendous class consciousness that one associates with the Victorians, more than say with Jane Austen and the Regency, although it certainly exists there as well.
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Feb 14, 2011 Rebecca rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: classics, 2011

Angel in the house hits the road and doesn't come back no more.

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Mar 22, 2013 Carol Apple rated it 4 of 5 stars

Reading The Old Curiosity Shop, Dickens’ fourth novel and very popular in his time, I was blown away by the quality and force of Dickens’ writing, perhaps even more than usual. I just wanted to get my notebook and copy paragraphs. Even so, the story, apart from Dickens’ genius for bringing characters to life and sheer literary beauty, is a rather maudlin morality tale. The villains are rotten to the core and the good people are the purest of saints. It is the story of a young girl who lives with...more Reading The Old Curiosity Shop, Dickens’ fourth novel and very popular in his time, I was blown away by the quality and force of Dickens’ writing, perhaps even more than usual. I just wanted to get my notebook and copy paragraphs. Even so, the story, apart from Dickens’ genius for bringing characters to life and sheer literary beauty, is a rather maudlin morality tale. The villains are rotten to the core and the good people are the purest of saints. It is the story of a young girl who lives with her grandfather, a dealer in “curiosities” or used odds and ends. When Grandfather cannot repay his loans due to his gambling, his evil financier, Daniel Quilp, takes over the shop, and Grandfather and Nell take to the open road.

I’m sure there are reams of literary commentary and criticism on this novel, but I have not read any of it. One of these days I may do some research. But right now I am simply sketching out my first impressions of the book. My instinct is that Dickens was perfectly aware that he was writing a melodrama using stock characters, and chose to do so quite deliberately. Several of the major characters are referred to throughout the novel only by their roles and never given names: the single gentleman, Grandfather, the poor schoolmaster, and Kip’s mother are a few of these. Adding credence to my theory is Dickens’ use of the ultimate stock characters, Punch and Judy, as an integral part of the plot. The image of Punch flung on a gravestone while the performers stop to do repairs on the puppets is priceless.

Add to this Mrs. Jarley’s Waxworks, in which lifelike wax figures form the backdrop to the drama of Nell’s struggle to survive and save her Grandfather from himself. How clever to employ stock characters in a novel full of stock characters. The question comes up in my mind: what is the magic quality that makes a character come to life? Two people die in the end: Nell and Quilp. Somehow Nell becomes more alive than ever in death and Quilp is becomes deader than Punch. Only Dickens could make this work.

More about this book at http://www.carolsnotes.net/2012/03/th...(less)

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Feb 06, 2012 Ben Dutton rated it 5 of 5 stars

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. The Old Curiosity Shop, Dickens’ fourth novel, appeared at the height of his fame. In 1841 he had declined an invitation to stand for parliament, and was riding a wave of public adulation that would end with a public dinner in his honour at Edinburgh. It is a Victorian novel of much repute, a novel of which many know if have not read know that it tells the story of Little Nell Trent. I have often heard the story that emigrants, arriving in America, were accosted by those already living there, im...more The Old Curiosity Shop, Dickens’ fourth novel, appeared at the height of his fame. In 1841 he had declined an invitation to stand for parliament, and was riding a wave of public adulation that would end with a public dinner in his honour at Edinburgh. It is a Victorian novel of much repute, a novel of which many know if have not read know that it tells the story of Little Nell Trent. I have often heard the story that emigrants, arriving in America, were accosted by those already living there, imploring them to tell whether Little Nell lives or had dead. The Old Curiosity Shop was famous immediately. Since then its critical reception has not always been kind: Oscar Wilde once said that one would need a heart of stone to read of her death without laughing. For those critics of Dickens, it is this novel that truly makes their case. Full of saccharine and sentimental language, The Old Curiosity Shop is Dickens at his most manipulative.

This novel began life as part of a long running serial in Master Humphrey’s Clock – and included Barnaby Rudge. The first few chapters are narrated by Master Humphrey, in the first person, and the change of perspective allows Dickens an insight missing from his earlier novels. It is clear, however, that Dickens cannot sustain this point of view, and has Master Humphrey retreat from his story, and The Old Curiosity Shop becomes a third person omniscient narrative again: his story could be told no other way. Moving between Little Nell and her grandfather, to their devoted friend Kit, to the monstrous Quilp – who seems to be everywhere – and the ragtag cast of secondary characters. The reason for his change in reversion of style: lack of sales. Though the first instalment of Master Humphrey’s Clock had sold well, when the public realised that this was not the first instalment of a new novel by him, but a collection of lots of small works with a story that would stop and start as the magazine progressed, sales dropped dramatically. Dickens changed his plans almost overnight.

At its heart The Old Curiosity Shop is a story of pursuit. Nell and her grandfather are fleeing danger in the city – in the form of Quilp – and cross country, in pursuit of a new happiness, and spiritual sanctuary. The grandfather is being pursued by his own demons, and in one bravura sequence, Nell sees her grandfather become the monster that is chasing him, when he steals into her room to rob her of the few coins they have. Quilp is pursuing them. Kit is pursuing them to see the face of the girl he cherishes one last time. Most dramatically, though, fate is pursuing them too – and when a young boy tells Nell the angels have come to take her, the final stage is set. It is, then, a grand novel, an ambitious one, and a change from the picaresque novels that had so far defined the Victorian novel – Dickens’s genius was to tell a story a new way, a way we recognise now as modern. He has a lot of fun with it too. As the novel progresses you can sense Dickens flexing his authorial muscles – you can feel his evolution as a writer on the page. It is this effervescent fashion, The Old Curiosity Shop shines. Some of his writing is however deliberately manipulative:

“She was dead. Dear, gentle, patient, noble Nell, was dead. Her little bird – a poor slight thing the pressure of a finger would have crushed – was stirring nimbly in its cage; and the strong heart of its child-mistress was mute and motionless forever.
“Where were the traces of her early cares, her sufferings, and fatigues? All gone. Sorrow was dead indeed in her, but peace and perfect happiness were born; imaged in her tranquil beauty and profound repose.
“And still her former self lay there; unaltered in this change. Yes. The old fireside had smiled upon that same sweet face; it had passed like a dream through haunts of misery and care.”

One can see him writing this, thinking how they will cry. It strikes me as a writer writing for his public, rather than himself. This is, however, only a minor criticism. It is, though, a criticism that often dogs Dickens’s work and it would be wrong of us to focus on this for too long.

The Old Curiosity Shop, then, is a grand advancement of Dickens’s talent as a writer. It feels, of all his work thus far, the first modern masterpiece. (less)

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Feb 21, 2012 David Jay rated it 5 of 5 stars

What a wonderful book! One of my favorite Dickens books!! I'm not sure why it isn't one of his more popular books (at least I don't think it is) but I loved it from the first page. Certainly long, which usually drives me away, but I didn't mind the length at all.

My dearest friends and I pick a book it seems once a year to read together and this was our latest choice. When searching for a copy, I noticed that all of Dickens work is available for free as an ebook. So I took the plunge, bought a K...more

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Jul 24, 2011 Luke Harris rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: classics

Another great book by Dickens. Whereas Nicholas Nickleby contain a lot of narrative in a fairly short space, the Old Curiosity Shop is rather the opposite. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, though if I were to pick fault it would be the seeming aimlessness of the narrative at times. But on the other hand, this book contains one of the most chilling and utterly brilliant pieces of description I have ever read, when the characters are on the road between Birmingham and Wolverhampton, of the effe...more

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Apr 19, 2009 Heather rated it 5 of 5 stars

Unlike most who will review this, this is the first Dickens novel that I've actually read (I don't think it counts that I skimmed A Tale of Two Cities and furiously read Cliffnotes before the exam in ninth grade). I found this book in The Galveston Bookshop when my husband and I drove down to see what all fuss over the Mardi Gras celebrations was about. We found the island as we expected: completely devastated by last year's hurricane. The Galveston Bookshop was musty and warm and smelled faintl...more Unlike most who will review this, this is the first Dickens novel that I've actually read (I don't think it counts that I skimmed A Tale of Two Cities and furiously read Cliffnotes before the exam in ninth grade). I found this book in The Galveston Bookshop when my husband and I drove down to see what all fuss over the Mardi Gras celebrations was about. We found the island as we expected: completely devastated by last year's hurricane. The Galveston Bookshop was musty and warm and smelled faintly of mildew, but it was still there despite being washed away just a few months prior to our visit. The shop cat greeted us, which was very endearing. We immediately decided that we must purchase at least something from this shop, as it clearly needed patronage. I found this book on a little dark shelf, bound prettily yet cheaply from some "collector's library" set. There was no quick teaser or plot summary anywhere in the book, but I decided to give this a go and adopted the little orphaned book for eight dollars.

I apparently love Dickens, as most have reviewed this as the least of his works, and I really adored it. I agree, however, that Nell wasn't a heroine with whom most could identify. She was a bit too sweet, a bit too selfless, and a bit too meek - but this made her death appropriate, I thought. No one can stay so sweet forever, but she managed it in the memory of her friends. Kit was my favorite, and I was glad that he got just as much mention as Nell. He rescues this novel from being entirely depressing and somehow even manages to make it extremely pleasant!

As for the rest of the characters, I loved how campy they were! Having their personalities and actions taken to extremes really made "Chapter the Last" satisfying. That being said, I also appreciated that at least one character wasn't completely one-dimensional. Dick Swiveller thoroughly annoyed me for at least the first half of the book, and I thought him a useless lump; however, by the end of the novel, I loved him quite as much as I loved Kit and was definitely rooting for him to marry the Marchioness.

Much of the writing was really beautiful, but I take it that this is typical of the author.

My one real complaint was that Dickens didn't make it clear enough (for me at least) that Kit didn't love Nell romantically, which spoiled his kiss with Barbara for me. It was more of a shock and a feeling of betrayal than sweetness. Poor Barbara!(less)

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Jul 28, 2008 Jeanne rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: dickens-2008

It's novel #7 in my year of Dickens! While it's not my favorite, The Old Curiosity Shop is a fairly easy read.

Quick plot: Little Nell Trent lives in the old curiosity shop with her grandfather. When the old man's gambling gets out of hand, and he loses everything, grandfather and granddaughter hit the road to live as beggars. Along the way, they meet some interesting and sympathetic characters.

The characters at home, however, are not always so sympathetic. Quilp, the evil dwarf, is responsible f...more

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May 06, 2012 Alice rated it 4 of 5 stars

I enjoyed The Old Curiosity Shop. I had tried to read this book many years ago and could not get into it at the time. When I started it again, I sort of remembered why I didn't finish it all those years ago: the main characters are just not that interesting. Nell is too sickly sweet. She almost has no personality at all and is, instead, a personification of goodness and innocence. And the villain, Daniel Quilp, is so repulsive in the beginning, but eventually I felt like he was all bark and no b...more

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Jan 06, 2009 Ryan Mishap rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: novel

Poor little Nell, left nearly alone in the world except for the kindly proprietor of the title business. Oh, but fate has more nastiness in store for our little angel. Written originally as a serial, this made everyone in England cry when little Nell died. I liked reading it well enough, but as a school mate once said to me, "Dickens must have been paid by the word." I like long books as long as the writing is good and the story holds interest, so the length doesn't bother me. For those who pre...more

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Sep 06, 2010 Celia rated it 4 of 5 stars

Dickens is one of my favorite 19th century writers, and now I can add this novel to one of my top 3 Dickens' titles. Little Nell, dear Kit and the evil Mr. Quilp are characters that must have made the readers back in 1840 cheer and hiss. I actually tried to keep in mind what the world was like back then, and how the literate public would have perceived the story, as it came out in chapters.
A great last line: "Such are the changes which a few years bring about, and so do things pass away, like a...more

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Dec 16, 2009 Sonya rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: classic-or-old, read-in-2009

There are some awfully lovely passages in The Old Curiosity Shop, to be sure. And there are, conversely, some hilarious scenes with the villain dwarf Quilp. And Kit, and Mr. Swiveller and the Marchioness, provide plenty of characters for which to root. But the bludgeon of Nell's (aka "The Child")incessant goodness was sometimes too much to forebear, and thus bump what might have been a heaven-sent four star accolade shooting down life's wicked critical path to three. Ah, the cruel fate of scorn...more

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Sep 01, 2012 Lisetta rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

-chi sa,-disse con uno sguardo scaltro-se questo signore non intendeva di domandar gentilmente se pu�� avere l'onore di fa una partita con noi?. -Era questa la mia intenzione-esclam�� il vecchio. -Ecco quello che volgio dire. Ecco ci�� che desidero ora- -Lo immaginavo,- osserv�� il suo interlocutore.- Allora, forse, il signore prevedendo che a noi non piace giocare per divertimento, desidera gentilmente di giocare a denari? La malattia del...more

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Apr 02, 2013 Victoria rated it 4 of 5 stars

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

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Mar 15, 2013 Iris Claudio rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Probably the only aspect of this novel that brought down the story was, oddly enough, the character we are expected to love and support. Though she ends up moving physically throughout the novel, character-wise, she is very stagnant, to the point of annoyance, honestly. And I understand why; Nell wasn't created to be a character, she was created to be some sort of symbolic sun, in which every other character revolved their lives around.

As a result, I became less invested with Nell and more inte...more Probably the only aspect of this novel that brought down the story was, oddly enough, the character we are expected to love and support. Though she ends up moving physically throughout the novel, character-wise, she is very stagnant, to the point of annoyance, honestly. And I understand why; Nell wasn't created to be a character, she was created to be some sort of symbolic sun, in which every other character revolved their lives around.

As a result, I became less invested with Nell and more interested in what would happen to the characters around her, who were much more dynamic--with probably the exception of Quilp, who was an interesting villain who was a manipulative, perverse bastard until the very end of the novel. But even he gets boring after a while, because he also seems to more of a symbol than a character.

Plus, this odd dynamic that Dickens and many other Victorian Lit writers popularized--beauty=good, holy, pure; ugly/darkness=evil, corrupt--just bothered me in the book. Not even Kit is drawn as aesthetically pleasing as Nell, and he's not just a protagonist, but he's also one of the most well developed characters. However, Nell is drawn as if she's the bright light in dank and sinful Victorian England. The only ones that match up with her beauty and "goodness" are the characters she's drawn with in the book's last illustration.

This isn't to say that there isn't an audience for this book. Apparently, Americans used to eat this book up when it came out; they were eager and curious about what would happen to poor Little Nell (who was a favorite character, obviously). I don't hate Nell, I just wish she had some more development and more of a dynamic to her character, and not just some aspect of her personality that would show up in one chapter and never be shown again (like her attempt to rescue her grandfather). I guess it's those little moments, if it's not the rest of her, that's kept Nell's audience in tact. I'm just not one of the many sitting with the rest of her loving fans.
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Jan 27, 2013 Kirsten Whyte rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

"Dark and dream-like, The Old Curiosity Shop is filled with unforgettable, grotesque characters: Quilp, a demonic dwarf who eats eggs in their shells and drinks boiling rum, a loving grandfather with a terrible gambling addiction, frail but loving Nell and her wicked brother Frederick, corrupt, abusive lawyer Sampson Brass and good-hearted hero Kit Nubbles.
Famously one of Dickens' most moving tales, The Old Curiosity Shop is also one of his strangest and most memorable."

I have finally finished r...more "Dark and dream-like, The Old Curiosity Shop is filled with unforgettable, grotesque characters: Quilp, a demonic dwarf who eats eggs in their shells and drinks boiling rum, a loving grandfather with a terrible gambling addiction, frail but loving Nell and her wicked brother Frederick, corrupt, abusive lawyer Sampson Brass and good-hearted hero Kit Nubbles.
Famously one of Dickens' most moving tales, The Old Curiosity Shop is also one of his strangest and most memorable."

I have finally finished reading The Old Curiosity Shop. It was a bit of a marathon and feels to have taken me ages, although in reality it has taken me a month (which is still a long time).

It was first published as weekly parts in Master Humphrey's Clock and was more successful than any other of Dickens' previous serials. However, by the time of his death in 1870, The Old Curiosity Shop was consigned to the lower ranks of Dickens' work on account of its excessive pathos and sentimentality. These days it is a studied text because of the display of "melodramatic imagination and the grotesque, as well as various psychoanalytic and political readings of the social and sexual energies and the death impulses in the novel."

This is not why I chose to read it. I am trying to read more classics, so after reading one or two 'modern' books, I pick up one a little older. A book blogger that I follow is doing something similar, entitled: Classically Challenged. A very apt title, as so many of the classics are a challenge to read. I also had some naive idea that it was actually about a shop filled with curiosities and the people who might frequent it. I was wrong. At its heart, like so many of Dickens' novels, is a child-heroine who is a victim, an innocent, a figure of unalloyed purity, whose story - like that of Oliver Twist - represents the principle of good surviving through every adverse circumstance, but whose goodness is so pure that it can not survive in the sins and tears of the real world: Nell.

I didn't really like Nell. I could empathise with her trying to keep her doddery old grandfather away from the increasingly present temptations of gambling, which was the be all and end all of their undoing. They wouldn't have had to run away if he hadn't gambled with everything they had and at the merest opportunity, would do it all again in the belief that this time he would win their fortune. She was to good, to pure. And then *spoiler alert* when she died at the end, there were pages and pages of how treasured she was to this, that and the next person. It was all a bit much.

Neither did I really feel anything for Kit. I think he was supposed to be constantly troubled by Nell's disappearance because he loved her and he desperately wanted to find her, but I didn't really get that feeling. It could be because he was blatantly flirting with another during his turmoil and then as soon as Nell died he married her and had several children.

The only character I really had any feeling towards was the despicable Quilp. He is quite repulsive, lecherous, sadomasochistic and possessed by a restless, destructive energy. He constantly traumatises his wife, reducing her to a gibbering wreck, for his own enjoyment and likes to cause mischief wherever he can, *spoiler alert* even going so far as to concoct a plot to put Kit in jail for no other reason than he loved Nell and Quilp was under the illusion that Nell and her grandfather were rich and he didn't want Kit to get the money. He gets his comeuppance in the end by falling in the river and being dragged under by a passing ship, which deposits his body in an appropriate spot full of flotsam and jetsam. He is not a likeable character at all, but it is his meddling and bizarre obsession with Nell that kept me turning the pages. I wanted to know if he would find Nell and her grandfather before the others did, and if he did, what would he do. Sadly the boat kills him before he can.

I also have to mention briefly, Richard Swiveller, who provided the best quote of the book, in my opinion:

"I say," quoth Miss Brass, . . . "you haven't seen a silver pencil-case this morning, have you?"
"I didn't meet any in the street," rejoined Mr Swiveller. "I saw one - a stout pencil-case of respectable appearance - but as he was in company with an elderly penknife and a young toothpick, with whom he was in earnest conversation, I felt a delicacy in speaking to him."

I don't often find Dickens amusing. I'm sure there are jokes in his books, but sometimes the language defeats me. This small snippet redeemed the book a little for me, just at the point where I was beginning to wonder, despite the fact that I wanted to know what happens, if I should give up.

I'm glad I saw it through to the end (I would have missed the untimely end of Quilp if I hadn't), but it isn't my favourite Dickens novel. If it really had been about a shop full of odd and old curiosities, and the peculiar and bizarre people who visited it - like the deaf old lady who had a penchant for leaving her false teeth in the helmet of a suit of armour, making it smile - maybe it would have been.(less)

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Oct 07, 2012 Smcleish rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: owned

Originally published on my blog here in January 2001.

Like Dickens' other earlier novels, The Pickwick Papers was a huge success at the time, even eclipsing The Pickwick Papers. Today it is much less well liked, for a variety of reasons. When I first read it, I thought it his poorest work, tough now I would not quite say that of it.

The plot is simple. The villainous dwarf Mr Quilp is determined to destroy the virtuous, to bring down whoever he can get into his power. This includes the owner of th...more Originally published on my blog here in January 2001.

Like Dickens' other earlier novels, The Pickwick Papers was a huge success at the time, even eclipsing The Pickwick Papers. Today it is much less well liked, for a variety of reasons. When I first read it, I thought it his poorest work, tough now I would not quite say that of it.

The plot is simple. The villainous dwarf Mr Quilp is determined to destroy the virtuous, to bring down whoever he can get into his power. This includes the owner of the shop of the title, a real place which is still a minor tourist attraction. (I work close to it, and there are usually two or three people taking photos outside it.) His innocent, virtuous teenage granddaughter Nell is destined by Quilp to be his second wife (once he has succeeded in hounding the first to her grave). Just as Quilp is about to demonstrate his power over the pair, they flee from London.

The descriptions of the journey of Nell and her grandfather are the best pieces of writing in the novel. They encounter picturesque travellers long since driven out of business by cinema and TV - a punch and judy troupe, stilt-walkers, a travelling waxworks - and these are vividly brought to life, so that they are fascinating even to those of us who are not social historians. (Dickens does the same with Astley's circus in London, visited by another character.)

The outcome is also interesting, for virtue triumphs more because Quilp overreaches himself than through positive heroic action. This is unusual, though Dickens in general pays fairly perfunctory attention to plotting. The discovery of the villain's plots is quickly followed by his destruction in an accidental fire - dramatic, if far fetched. The virtuous characters, which can, I think, include the good at heart but weak Dick Swiveller, are very passive; this is again unusual but has several parallels throughout Dickens' writing.

The novel has two closely related structural defects. It was not, apparently, conceived as a novel from the very start, and this makes its beginning very slow. It was originally meant to be the first of a series of impressions rather like Sketches by Boz. This is where the first chapter is coming from, in which a narrator absent form the rest of the novel visits the shop; he is Master Humphrey, and the name of the journal in which the serial appeared was Master Humphrey's Clock. Even when the novel itself begins, it is a long time before the plot starts to move.

The novel has its most famous scenes near the end - the death of Quilp and the death of Nell. The latter, which was for a long time the best known piece of nineteenth century fiction, doesn't take place until the seventieth chapter. It is obvious what is going to happen almost from the beginning of the novel; Nell seems to have been conceived as an illustration of the phrase "too good for this world". The death itself is very sentimental, which is both why it was popular at the time and why it has become less appreciated. It is an admirable piece of writing, all the more so for not appearing to be calculating in its effects. However, by the point where Nell's death occurs, the main interest of the novel is already over; Quilp is the driving force behind it, and what forward momentum it has dissipates with his death.(less)

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Jul 28, 2012 Courtney H. rated it 4 of 5 stars

Although there was much to enjoy about Old Curiosity Shop, I’m going to start by saying that this was probably my least favorite Dickens novel. Dickens is perhaps my favorite author, so the standard is high, and Little Nell just couldn’t compete with his big guns (Our Mutual Friend, Bleak House, Great Expectations, etc.). It, like Martin Chuzzlewit, is a bit between the picturesque of Pickwick and the subtle, if bleak, complexity of Great Expectations, but it lacks the same comedy of caricature...more Although there was much to enjoy about Old Curiosity Shop, I’m going to start by saying that this was probably my least favorite Dickens novel. Dickens is perhaps my favorite author, so the standard is high, and Little Nell just couldn’t compete with his big guns (Our Mutual Friend, Bleak House, Great Expectations, etc.). It, like Martin Chuzzlewit, is a bit between the picturesque of Pickwick and the subtle, if bleak, complexity of Great Expectations, but it lacks the same comedy of caricature.
The problem is that many of his characters are one-or-two-note characters, but they bath in pure goodness or pure evil, without any of the quirks that made them truly endearing, or truly sinister, in Chuzzlewit. Quilp came the closest, and I did hugely enjoy Sally Brass, but they lacked the same imagination that Jonas Chuzzlewit had. Nell was too much of a Dora (David Copperfield); kind and sweet to the point of blandness. Dickens’ one-note women are usually worth an eyeroll; they usually serve as a prize of goodness for the struggling hero. But here, Nell had to carry the plot as well as her grandfather—and while she might have had the inner strength of the latter, she wasn’t interesting enough for the former. Even Kit seemed to read almost as a prototype for the more entertaining and/or complex youth heroes that Dickens would later create.
That being said, Dickens did introduce several characters that existed in the gray. The grandfather particularly was fascinating; one does not usually see an addict, never mind a gambling portrayed in the pages of a nineteenth century novel. He was good but plagued by demons to the point that he almost a Jekyll/Hyde character; a product but also a creator of his own tragedies. He was selfish in his selflessness, willing to sacrifice for his hopes and his addition the very person he purported to wish to save. Dickens played out that desperation well. I also really appreciated Richard Swiveller; I did not see his evolution and redemption coming, though Dickens never broke character—he simply allowed his character to grow up and take the risks necessary to turn a somewhat deviant character into an actually good man. He was the real hero of the story, I believe. I also liked the Marchioness; she was a bit one-note in her relationship with Dickens’ heroes, but she was also fun and complex—a card player, sly, scared but also brave; I would have more happily followed her around England than Nell.
The other thing that this book did well is to provide a darker version of the England he presented in Pickwick. Not merely a site for satire, it is a place where people are hard and cruel, where society could be even harder and more cruel, and where some people could, in their own garish or impoverished way, reach out to assist wanderers in need. Dickens was unrelenting at times, sentencing even his Good Waif/Living Angel characters to experience dark moments, darker than his purely good characters usually have to suffer. In many ways, this is a story of a more-or-less overwhelming wave of evil, selfishness, and cruelty, beaten back at points by people who are willing to step into the fray. Some, like Kit and Nell, are born to serve this role, however it hurts them; or who are born into privilege and are good because they were born that way, and because they can ride out the wave in safety. More interesting are the characters, like Richard and even Mrs. Jarley, who either participated in or teetered on the edge of a more selfish life, and who made the active choice to eschew the easier path in favor of saving our protagnosts —at some possible cost to themselves. Because Dickens did not write them merely to be “good,” like he wrote Kit and Nell, their choices are actual choices and therefore all the more fascinating.
There are other flaws in the novel, such as an abrupt change in narrative form, not present in his other novels; and overall, it just lacks the precision and tightness present in his later novels. Still, it clearly is a novel that got me thinking, and featured some of the traditional Dickens: humorous characters, decent and interesting villains, excellent and humorous depictions of scenes and people; a fantastic assortment of oddball characters who provide color and depth to the novel. I would not recommend this for anyone who doesn’t think they like Dickens or who is just getting started out; and there are any number of Dickens that I’d recommend a reader take on first; but for all that, it was enjoyable and worth a read.
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Jul 03, 2012 Thom Swennes rated it 3 of 5 stars

Another triumphal portrayal and characterization of lower middle-class Victorian England, The Old Curiosity Shop by Charles Dickens remains a cut above his contemporaries. As in other better known and read novels Dickens weaves a tale brimming with remarkably vivid and memorable characters. Some could argue that many characters could be interchanged with those of other books and I would have to agree. This agreement isn’t meant in any way to be derogatory criticism but rather an affirmation of b...more

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About Charles Dickens

A prolific 19th Century author of short stories, plays, novellas, novels, fiction and non-fiction; during his lifetime Dickens became known the world over for his remarkable characters, his mastery of prose in the telling of their lives, and his depictions of the social classes, morals and values of his times. Some considered him the spokesman for the poor, for he definitely brought much awarenes...more

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