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The Old Curiosity Shop

The Old Curiosity Shop Paperback - 2001

by Charles Dickens

  • Used
  • Acceptable
  • Paperback

Description

Penguin Publishing Group, 2001. Paperback. Acceptable. Former library book; Readable copy. Pages may have considerable notes/highlighting. ~ ThriftBooks: Read More, Spend Less.Dust jacket quality is not guaranteed.
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Details

  • Title The Old Curiosity Shop
  • Author Charles Dickens
  • Binding Paperback
  • Edition Reissue
  • Condition Used - Acceptable
  • Pages 608
  • Volumes 1
  • Language ENG
  • Publisher Penguin Publishing Group, New York, New York
  • Date 2001
  • Features Table of Contents
  • Bookseller's Inventory # G0140437428I5N10
  • ISBN 9780140437423 / 0140437428
  • Weight 0.9 lbs (0.41 kg)
  • Dimensions 7.68 x 5.52 x 1.09 in (19.51 x 14.02 x 2.77 cm)
  • Ages 18 to UP years
  • Grade levels 13 - UP
  • Reading level 820
  • Themes
    • Theometrics: Secular
  • Library of Congress subjects Domestic fiction, England
  • Library of Congress Catalog Number 2001271862
  • Dewey Decimal Code FIC

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About this book

The Old Curiosity Shop, what would become Charles Dickens’ fourth novel, was first published in 88 weekly installments in Dickens’ serial, Master Humphrey’s Clock, from April 1840 to February 1841. In a tale that survives the transcendence of time, The Old Curiosity Shop tells the story of thirteen-year-old Nell Trent and her grandfather who live in The Old Curiosity Shop, a small antique and gift store. The unnamed grandfather, desperate to leave Nell in good financial standing after his death, loses The Old Curiosity Shop to a gambling problem, forcing him and young Nell to wander the countryside.

Summary

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-the eloquent ne'er-do-well Dick Swiveller; the hungry maid known as the "Marchioness"; the mannish lawyer Sally Brass; Quilp's brow-beaten mother-in-law; and Quilp himself, the lustful, vengeful dwarf, whose demonic energy makes a vivid counterpoint to Nell's purity.

From the publisher

Charles Dickens was born on February 7, 1812, in Landport, Portsea, England. He died in Kent on June 9, 1870. The second of eight children of a family continually plagued by debt, the young Dickens came to know not only hunger and privation,but also the horror of the infamous debtors’ prison and the evils of child labor. A turn of fortune in the shape of a legacy brought release from the nightmare of prison and “slave” factories and afforded Dickens the opportunity of two years’ formal schooling at Wellington House Academy. He worked as an attorney’s clerk and newspaper reporter until his Sketches by Boz (1836) and The Pickwick Papers (1837) brought him the amazing and instant success that was to be his for the remainder of his life. In later years, the pressure of serial writing, editorial duties, lectures, and social commitments led to his separation from Catherine Hogarth after twenty-three years of marriage. It also hastened his death at the age of fifty-eight, when he was characteristically engaged in a multitude of work.

From the rear cover

The story of 'Little Nell' gripped the nation when it first appeared. Described as a 'tragedy of sorrows', it tells of Nell uprooted from a secure and innocent childhood and cast into a world where evil takes many shapes, the most fascinating of which is the stunted, lecherous Quilp. He is Nell's tormenter and destroyer, and it is his demonic energy that dominates the book.

First Edition Identification

The Old Curiosity Shop was first published in book form by Chapman & Hall in London in 1841.

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About the author

Charles Dickens was born on February 7, 1812, in Landport, Portsea, England. He died in Kent on June 9, 1870. The second of eight children of a family continually plagued by debt, the young Dickens came to know not only hunger and privation, but also the horror of the infamous debtors' prison and the evils of child labor. A turn of fortune in the shape of a legacy brought release from the nightmare of prison and "slave" factories and afforded Dickens the opportunity of two years' formal schooling at Wellington House Academy. He worked as an attorney's clerk and newspaper reporter until his Sketches by Boz (1836) and The Pickwick Papers (1837) brought him the amazing and instant success that was to be his for the remainder of his life. In later years, the pressure of serial writing, editorial duties, lectures, and social commitments led to his separation from Catherine Hogarth after twenty-three years of marriage. It also hastened his death at the age of fifty-eight, when he was characteristically engaged in a multitude of work.