Outstanding performances and setting, but the girl playing Nell was weak, and abridging the story high-lighted Dickens' emotional manipulations. Tom Courtenay as Quilp was superb, and Peter Ustinov as the Grandfather totally captured the tormented but inescapable anguish of the gambling-addicted old man. ( )

An early (his fourth) novel of Dickens written in 1840 - 41. He starts with a narrator, but drops the device in Chapter 4 – one of the perils of writing in published instalments. It reminds me of OUR MUTUAL FRIEND – with the poor innocents being pure white, and the evil villains being so dark it is ludicrous. The chief villain in this piece, Quilp, is so impossibly bad that it is laughable. Oscar Wilde said: 'One would have to have a heart of stone to read the death of little Nell without dissolving into tears...of laughter.' This book doesn’t contribute much to Dickens lasting fame. Read November 2008 ( )

Dickens story of contrasts: youth and old age, beauty and deformity, freedom and restraint.

http://lonelymountain.net/books/apr09... ( )

This was assigned reading for a book club. It has been a long time since I read Dickens. It won't be that long again. When placed alongside some of the other books I have read lately, this book shines. It is, of course, long and wordy. But what beautiful prose is found within those words. You will be reading along and be grabbed by a paragraph that is so absolutely perfect. The characters are so well drawn. The people are what keeps you going through some words and situations that are so foreign to us in our time. Most readers just won't put in the time and effort but for those who are willing the reward is great. ( )

A good first line, and some very powerful passages, particularly once Nell and her grandfather hit the road, but overall, not one of Dickens' best.

This is in really pretty good condition. It is shown to have been given as a gift in 1924

The Old Curiosity Shop is Dickens 4th novel, serialized between 1840 and 1841. It was his best selling work to date and contains some strong auto-biographical elements concerning the death of his sister-in-law Mary Hogarth, as seen in the death of Nell. After he finished Dickens said he though it his best work and would always be his favorite, although this sentiment would later change with David Copperfield. It sold well in America - one of the best known stories about the novel is that readers would line up at the dock, as ships came in from England, asking if Nell had died, however this is apocryphal.

Critically the novel has had a mixed reception and it is generally considered to be near (but not at) the bottom of his 16 major works. The character of Nell in particular has been the focus of scorn for being too sentimental or "vulgar" - I found certain passages of her death to be unreadable, and during her escapades around the countryside I found myself caring not one bit what happened (I almost gave up the novel entirely but luckily kept going). Up until about page 340 (of 521) the novel is fairly unfocused and not much happens. The remaining 150 pages or so are probably the best. The character of Quilp is the most memorable - Dickens doesn't fully flesh it out, but it is obvious from his habits that Quilp is an old sea-hand, old enough to have been in the Napoleonic Wars and probably one of many veterans who plagued Englands unemployed ranks in the years after. Thus for me he held a certain fascination not only as a comic "Ogre", but as an archetype of what probably was not uncommon in the period.

Despite the attention on Nell she is not really the hero of the novel, who is Richard 'Dick' Swiveller, a name not dissimilar to the authors own and Dickens' favorite character. He is transformed by 3 weeks in a coma and comes out the other side strong enough to take on and beat the evil Quilp.

Despite problems this is still a Dickens novel and fairly good. There are certain scenes and passages and characters that will live with me always.

--Review by Stephen Balbach, via CoolReading (c) 2008 cc-by-nd ( )

Has its good points - but ultimately too random. ( )

I agree with Oscar Wilde: I'm willing Little Nell to die just so the agony of this dreadful, cloying novel will be over. Is it possible to be allergic to a novel?

I can't wait to see this televised at Christmas! Charles Dickens has created his usual mix of heroes and villians that linger in the memory. It's a compelling story that kept me guessing to the end. Although Dickens can be wordy his stories are just brilliant and he always creates an empathy towards his virtuous characters. I wouldn't class this as my favourite as it lacks the atmosphere and drama of some of his others (Great Expectations, Bleak House, and Dombey and Son), added to which I found it quite slow at times but nevertheless a good read. ( )

3960. The Old Curiosity Shop, by Charles Dickens (read 5 Dec 2004) This is the 10th Dickens novel I have read. If I live long enough I may read all 16. This title was published in 1841. My reaction to the early part of the book was "What a chore!" but gradually one became used to oddities in the book--the grotesque Quilp, the evil dwarf and the nemesis of all good (whose treatment of his wife was so odd and evil it seemed very unreal); Little Nell--all sweetness and goodness; her grandfather, ensnared by gambling; Sampson Brass, the evil lawyer who always talked how good all was; his legal assistant and sister; Swiveller, who starts out evil but becomes a hero; Kit--the good boy so admiring of Little Nell, etc. There is much bathos related to Little Nell dying, but I was not repelled by it but rather admired how Dickens could "pile it on." The book has sometimes been considered Dickens' worst but if it is it is pretty good still, in some respects. I had a higher opinion of the book the more I read. Whether I will ever get the unread works of Dickens (A Christmas Carol, Martin Chuzzlewit, Dombey and Son, Little Dorrit, Our Mutual Friend, and Edwin Drood) read remains to be seen. ( )

In stacks--haven't read yet.

Along with "Hard Times", this is my least favourite of Dickens's novels, and for many of the same reasons, namely an imbalance between the end and the means....Like "The Pilgrim's Progress" (another boring allegory), this book features a quest through a wilderness, meetings with highly allegorical figures ending in the redemption of death. However, whereas the Progress features a solitary male traveller in the prime of life, Dickens splits this figure into two: two sexes, two ages, so as to bring to life the themes of gender and intergenerational relations, and also to increase pathos in the figures of the child, and the elder, two helpless states at the extremes of life.

Although Dickens was generally overtly hostile to organised religion in his fiction, regarding it as little more than a hypocritical system, the novel is permeated with a remnant protestant ethic stemming from its allegorical roots:
"With the brightness and joy of morning, came the renewal of yesterday’s labours, the revival of its pleasant thoughts, the restoration of its energies, cheerfulness and hope. The worked gaily in ordering and arranging their houses until noon, and then went to visit the clergyman"...

Read the full review on The Lectern

http://thelectern.blogspot.com/2007/0... ( )