The Old Curiosity Shop

What It's About

Nell Trent lives with her grandfather above the cluttered curiosity shop he keeps in London. Unknown to Nell, the old man has been secretly gambling, borrowing money at ruinous rates from Daniel Quilp, a grotesque and sadistic moneylender, in a misguided attempt to secure her future. When the debts finally overwhelm him and Quilp seizes the shop, grandfather and granddaughter flee the city on foot, wandering through the English countryside in search of a simpler, safer life, with Quilp in pursuit.

Key Concepts

The novel contrasts childhood innocence with the corrupting pull of money and vice, and moves between the grime of industrial England and the countryside beyond it. It was published in weekly instalments in Dickens's periodical Master Humphrey's Clock, and the story of Nell's fate became a sensation, with readers reportedly gathering at the docks in New York to ask arriving ships for news of how it ended. That same sentimentality later drew sharp criticism, most famously Oscar Wilde's remark that one would need a heart of stone not to laugh at Nell's story.

About the Author

Charles Dickens (1812–1870) was an English novelist and one of the most popular writers of the Victorian era. Raised partly in poverty and sent to work in a factory as a child after his father's imprisonment for debt, he drew heavily on his own early hardships in his fiction and became known for his vivid characters and sharp eye for social injustice.