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The Old Curiosity Shop

Introduction by Peter Washington

Introduction by Peter Washington
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Hardcover
$26.00 US
5.33"W x 8.38"H x 1.66"D   | 27 oz | 12 per carton
On sale Aug 01, 1995 | 624 Pages | 9780679443735

Charles Dickens’s story of selfless Little Nell and her ailing grandfather and their persecution by the magnificently malignant villain Quilp has seized the imaginations and wrung the hearts of generations of readers.

Dickens’s talent was superabundant in every way: in his dramatic force and his massive productivity, in his almost surreal comic power, in his compassion and thirst for justice, and in the imaginative pressure he brought to bear on even the most incidental of his characters. The delightfully various figures in The Old Curiosity Shop range memorably from jaunty Dick Swiveller and his little half-starved Marchioness to the hard-hearted siblings Sampson and Sally Brass, jovial Mrs. Jarley, devoted Kit Nubbles, the hunchbacked Daniel Quilp, and, of course, tragic Little Nell herself. Dickens’s depiction of the fate of his main characters is famously harrowing and unfailingly suspenseful, but not the least of its charms is that it is embellished with a supporting cast of figures as grotesque and colorful as anything in the Old Curiosity Shop itself.
           
This edition reprints the original Everyman’s preface by G. K. Chesterton and features seventy-five illustrations by Cattermole and Phiz.

Charles Dickens was born in a little house in Landport, Portsea, England, on February 7, 1812. The second of eight children, he grew up in a family frequently beset by financial insecurity. When the family fortunes improved, Charles went back to school, after which he became an office boy, a freelance reporter, and finally an author. With Pickwick Papers (1836–37) he achieved immediate fame. In a few years he was easily the most popular and respected writer of his time. It has been estimated that one out of every ten persons in Victorian England was a Dickens reader. Oliver Twist (1837), Nicholas Nickleby (1838–39), and The Old Curiosity Shop (1840-41) were huge successes. Martin Chuzzlewit (1843–44) was less so, but Dickens followed it with his unforgettable, A Christmas Carol (1843), Bleak House (1852–53), Hard Times (1854), and Little Dorrit (1855–57), which reveal his deepening concern for the injustices of British society. A Tale of Two Cities (1859), Great Expectations (1860–61), and Our Mutual Friend (1864–65) complete his major works. View titles by Charles Dickens

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Charles Dickens’s story of selfless Little Nell and her ailing grandfather and their persecution by the magnificently malignant villain Quilp has seized the imaginations and wrung the hearts of generations of readers.

Dickens’s talent was superabundant in every way: in his dramatic force and his massive productivity, in his almost surreal comic power, in his compassion and thirst for justice, and in the imaginative pressure he brought to bear on even the most incidental of his characters. The delightfully various figures in The Old Curiosity Shop range memorably from jaunty Dick Swiveller and his little half-starved Marchioness to the hard-hearted siblings Sampson and Sally Brass, jovial Mrs. Jarley, devoted Kit Nubbles, the hunchbacked Daniel Quilp, and, of course, tragic Little Nell herself. Dickens’s depiction of the fate of his main characters is famously harrowing and unfailingly suspenseful, but not the least of its charms is that it is embellished with a supporting cast of figures as grotesque and colorful as anything in the Old Curiosity Shop itself.
           
This edition reprints the original Everyman’s preface by G. K. Chesterton and features seventy-five illustrations by Cattermole and Phiz.

Author

Charles Dickens was born in a little house in Landport, Portsea, England, on February 7, 1812. The second of eight children, he grew up in a family frequently beset by financial insecurity. When the family fortunes improved, Charles went back to school, after which he became an office boy, a freelance reporter, and finally an author. With Pickwick Papers (1836–37) he achieved immediate fame. In a few years he was easily the most popular and respected writer of his time. It has been estimated that one out of every ten persons in Victorian England was a Dickens reader. Oliver Twist (1837), Nicholas Nickleby (1838–39), and The Old Curiosity Shop (1840-41) were huge successes. Martin Chuzzlewit (1843–44) was less so, but Dickens followed it with his unforgettable, A Christmas Carol (1843), Bleak House (1852–53), Hard Times (1854), and Little Dorrit (1855–57), which reveal his deepening concern for the injustices of British society. A Tale of Two Cities (1859), Great Expectations (1860–61), and Our Mutual Friend (1864–65) complete his major works. View titles by Charles Dickens