Charles Dickens

The Old Curiosity Shop by Charles Dickens

The Old Curiosity Shop is a novel by Charles Dickens. The plot follows the life of Nell Trent and her grandfather, both residents of The Old Curiosity Shop in London.

Probably the most widely-repeated criticism of Dickens is Oscar Wilde's remark that 'One would have to have a heart of stone to read the death of little Nell without dissolving into tears...of laughter.' Of a similar opinion was the poet Algernon Swinburne, who called Nell "a monster as inhuman as a baby with two heads."


The Irish leader Daniel O'Connell famously burst into tears at the finale, and threw the book out of the window of the train in which he was travelling.