Old Curiosity Shop

Little Nell Trent lives in the quiet gloom of the old curiosity shop with her ailing grandfather, for whom she cares with selfless devotion. But when they are unable to pay their debts to the loathsome Quilp, the shop is seized and they are forced to flee, thrown into a shadowy world in which there seems to be no safe haven. This edition, based on the original text of 1841, contains an introduction discussing the various contrasting themes of the novel and its roots in Dickens's own personal tragedy, with prefaces to the 1841 and 1848 editions, a chronology, notes and the original illustrations produced for the serial version.