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Product Description
Product Description
This Wordsworth Edition includes an exclusive Introduction and Notes by Peter Preston, University of Nottingham. Illustrations by Hablot K. Browne (Phiz) and George Cruickshank.
The Old Curiosity Shop (1840-41), with its combination of the sentimental, the grotesque and the socially concerned, and its story of pursuit and courage, which sets the downtrodden and the plucky against the malevolent and the villainous, was an immediate popular success. Little Nell quickly became one of Dickens' most celebrated characters, who so captured the imagination of his readers that while the novel was being serialised, many of them wrote to him about her fate.
Dickens was conscious of the ‘many friends’ the novel had won for him, and ‘the many hearts it turned to me when they were full of private sorrow’, and it remains one of the most familiar and well-loved of his works.
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A word of warning though: if you buy an edition with annotations, don't read them!! I made this fatal mistake, and was informed by a note in the middle of the novel about the fate of one of the main characters and what happens to the person at the end. What a spoiler! It ruined the whole pleasure of reading for me and I only managed to finish because the narrative was so lovely... if it had been any other novel I would surely not have bothered to go on to the end. Allow yourself the pleasure of reading this novel for its warmth and literary greatness - don't touch the notes.
There are so many things going on it, and although some things are just *too* coincidental, it never fails to grab you into the story. Couple this with the fact that Dickens can draw a wonderful picture of London of his time, and you feel part of the whole thing.
The characters are wonderful as well - my favourites being Quilp, the evil dwarf, and Richard Swiveller (his antics 'working' in the office were always highly amusing).
In short, a real rollercoaster of a novel, thoroughly recommended!!
Certainly, the novel is not what one would term realistic - there are a few too many happy coincidences for that. However, this shortcoming is completely compensated for by the sheer vividness of the world Dickens creates. Each character can almost be seen by the reader, and simultaneously each evokes their own unique emotion, from passionate hatred to empathy and warmth.
As for it being heart-wrenching, nobody with a soul should be able to read this undeniable classic without being destinctly moved. Like most works by Charles Dickens, "The Old Curiosity Shop" carries with it the irresistible human understaning and quiet wit of it's creator, and as such is a novel that should be read by everybody.
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