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.

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.

The old curiosity shop

The child in her gentle slumber

Mr Swiveller seeks to gain attention

Quilp interrupts at tea

Quilp in a smoking burnout

Quilp"s Wharf

Little Nell is anxious

A cool proposal

Mr Cbegg"s jealousy

Little Nell as comforter

Kit at home

The legal gentleman named Brass

The pilgrimage begins

Mr Swiveller"s pugilistic skill

Kit makes an appointment

A rest by the way

Punch in the churchyard

Grinder"slot

At the Jolly Sandboys

The giants meet the dwarfs

Little Nell"s anxiety

Quilp defies the dog

The kitchen at Abel Cottage

Quilp"s discovery

At the schoolmaster"s porch

The dunce improves the occasion

The lady of the caravan

Nell hides from Ouilp

Mrs Jarley"s waxwork

Producing a sensation

A game ofcardS

Miss Monflathers chides Nell

Mrs Jarley at the pay-place

A colleague for Miss Brass

Taken by a single gentleman

Mr Brass at the keyhole

The small servant "s dinner

An interview with Codlin and Short

Jerry"s dancing dogs

Mr Swiveller"s libation

At Astley"s

Mr Garland and Kit

Kit"s mother on a journey

A parley with the cardsharpers

Flight by water

Watching the furnace fire

A procession of the unemployed

Nell in a faint

A very aged, ghostly place

A gracious invitation

A descriptive advertisement

Mrs Quilp visits Bachelor Hall

Uproarious hospitality

Nell"s new home

Resting among the tombs

Nell"s garden

A black and dreadful place

Kit brings in a letter

The Marchioness at cards

Mr Swiveller plating the flute

Quilp"s grotesque politeness

Kit in jail

Revenge is sweet

Mr Swiveller to the rescue

A quiet game of cribbage

The Marchioness in the chaise

Delicacies for Mr Swiveller

Mr Brass unexpectedly appears

The end of Quilp

Kit"s virit to the stable

Farewell to the travellers

The journey"s end

At rest

Waiting at the grave

The spirit" s flight