The Old Curiosity Shop by Charles Dickens

There are many more I could mention, including the people Nell and her grandfather meet on their travels – wonderful scenes of the travelling Punch and Judy show Mrs Jarley’s wax-work figures, over a hundred of them that she takes around the countryside in a caravan the gypsies who take advantage of Nell’s grandfather’s addiction to gambling the poor schoolteacher who take in Nell and her grandfather and the Bachelor who they meet at the end of their journey. He rescues her and also Kit, Nell’s friend, when he is wrongly accused of robbery. Working in a law office for Mr Brass and his sister, Sally Brass, he befriends the small, half-starved girl who is a servant locked in the basement, calling her the Marchioness. Dick at first appears as a profligate friend of Nell’s brother, Fred but takes on a larger role later in the book. Other characters who stood out are Dick Swiveller and the Marchioness. … ate hard eggs, shell and all, devoured gigantic prawns with 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, and in short performed so many horrifying and uncommon acts that the women were nearly frightened out of their wits, and began to doubt if he were really a human creature. He’s scarcely human, grossly wicked, hideous in appearance, full of lust, ferocious, cunning, and malicious. He takes delight in inflicting pain and suffering on others. Several of the characters stand out for me, Quilp is an obvious choice. There are long passages where Nell doesn’t feature and is hardly mentioned, so it’s by no means a totally sentimental tale. There are numerous allusions to the Bible, Shakespeare and popular songs of the day. It has elements of folklore and myth, as Nell and her grandfather, go on an epic journey, fleeing from the terrifying dwarf, Daniel Quilp and travelling through a variety of scenes, meeting different groups of people on their journey. It’s also full of weird, grotesque and comic characters, a mix of everyday people and characters of fantasy.

It’s not just a sentimental, melodramatic story. And much to my surprise I have finished it in time for the deadline for reading our Spin book this Friday, even though it’s such a long book.

Without this push from the Classics Club this book would have stayed on my TBR list for a long time because all I knew about it was that it’s the book in which Little Nell suffers a melodramatic death and I feared it would be too sentimental for my liking. I’d listed The Old Curiosity Shop in my Classics Club Spin, but was really hoping to get one of Thomas Hardy’s books. Note: I’ve found this hard to write about without giving away some spoilers.

The Old Curiosity Shop by Charles Dickens