"The Old Curiosity Shop" (1841) by Charles Dickens

Dickens’s fourth novel, another huge best-seller, a «road novel» about the adorable Little Nell and her grandfather on the run all around England from a cruel, grasping creditor, no doubt the most villainous villain in all of his works.

The young heroine shines like a beacon through the gloomy moral and physical aspect of England of the times that Dickens was so good at portraying. She caught the imagination of the reading public like few characters before or since ever have.

The Old Curiosity Shop was printed in 40 weekly instalments in Dickens’s own magazine Master Humphrey’s Clock between April 1840 and February 1841, with a total of 75 illustrations — far more than in any of Dickens’s previous novels — of which 59 were done by Hablot Browne (Phiz), 14 by George Cattermole, and one each by Samuel Williams and Daniel Maclise.

All of its elaborate and often decidedly dramatic illustrations are included in the text here.

(217,000 words)

Particularly worthy of note is the dramatic depiction, in text and illustration, of the plight of the masses of unemployed who had been left aside in England’s triumphant ascension as leader of the world’s industrial revolution.

An e-book, with all of the illustrations, is available for downloading below.

The Old Curiosity Shop (e-book)